Peachy pale Santa
We all deserve to see heroes that look like us and – for whatever reason – Santa is his hero.
One of the many cute but pale, pale, pale Santas we found on our crusade.
My crusade began in early November at a craft show. It was enormous: a fieldhouse full of tables and booths and artists. And while fall themes were heavy, the Christmas crafts reigned supreme: snowman jewelry, nativity scenes made of beach glass, and, of course, Santas. They were everywhere: tall, short, thin, fat, stern, jolly. And white, always white. As if all the makers at this fair shared one jar of peachy pale paint.
To be fair, most of the makers were white. Most of the buyers were white. Most of our town is white. And, probably, most of the people perusing crafts weren’t thinking about how Representation might Matter to a Santa-loving four-year-old Black boy in their community. In fact, just a few days later, most of the people here would vote to clap back at woke nonsense.
But I digress.
There were no Black Santas to be found. I bought a felt Christmas tree with an eyeball in place of the star because it was weird and went home pleased, but motivated.
You have never met a child who loves Christmas as much as our four-year-old.
You think you have. After all, all kids love Christmas. But this is a whole ‘nother level.
From the time he started stringing words together, he referenced Santa in those strings. He requests Jingle Bells as a year-round bedtime lullaby. He drags Christmas books out of storage and fills pillowcases full of toys.
We all deserve to see heroes that look like us and – for whatever reason – Santa is his hero.
So after the craft show and a search of the downtown shops, I turned to Etsy. But even there — in the Etsy ecosphere — what I wanted was hard to find. There were plenty of Black Santas with statement clothing or quotes like “Have a melanated Christmas!” I appreciated these but wasn’t looking to make a statement. I just wanted a Santa doing Santa-y things with rich brown skin.
Of course, this might offend some people’s practical sensibilities. Remember when they remade The Little Mermaid with Halle Bailey and a subset of people lost their collective mind? “Santa lives in the frozen north! Why would he have melanated skin?” I imagine them fussing. But I found plenty of blond baby Jesuses in my search and we’ve all come to accept that little geohistorical inaccuracy. Besides: Santa travels the world via flying sleigh and has lived for centuries and is both chunky AND able to squeeze down slender chimneys and so I don’t know that accuracy is really what we’re going for?
Anyway, Saint Nick was Turkish so shush it.
My husband – always game to participate in a crusade – joined me to review the Etsy cart. “I like them, but maybe we don’t need all of those items,” he suggested.
What? Which ones could we possibly remove?! The 14-inch tall Nutcracker? The garland of Santa stars? The winking Santa wrapping paper? The dark wood nativity? The little angel boys?? We needed them all!!
After mild debate, we agreed to remove the wrapping paper and nativity set. But the Nutcracker now sits on our mantle, side-by-side with a small, pale counterpart.
Across the room stands a gift from my mom. The exact thing we’d been looking for: a giant, traditional Santa with rich brown skin. From Kohl’s of all places. Bless you, Kohl’s!
“Santa!” shouted all the kids upon seeing it. “Santa!!” they still shout upon seeing any snowy-bearded man in red.
Our kids. Side-by-side, brown and pale counterparts, overjoyed by it all, no matter the color.
“Can I see a picture of Santa?” our Santa-loving baby asked me the other day. So, I pulled a Google Image search for “Black Santa.” Perfect, jolly, snowy-bearded Santas with coloring like his own filled the screen. He looked at them happily for a few minutes. Then he said “I’m going to be Santa when I grow up,” and bounded away.
And there, right there, my heart melted into a holly, jolly puddle.
