Thanks Target, For Reminding Us Santa Doesn't Need To Be White
Target has multi-cultural Santa wrapping paper and we are HERE for it
As if I needed another reason to hand Target any more of my money this holiday season, they’re now selling multi-cultural Santa wrapping paper. So looks like I’ll be heading back and spending more.
Target’s selling Minted’s holiday paper in two-pack rolls: the first roll has this awesome multi-cultural Santa print:
Image via Minted
The second has “Fa La La La La” written all over it, and is also adorable:
Image via Target
And yes, I’ll be buying it, because my kids so rarely get to see the Santa fantasy manifesting in someone who looks like them. Since it’s 2018, some people will certainly take issue with it, because our world has devolved into a slow-burning dumpster fire.
But let’s get something clear, shall we? Santa is made up. He can be whatever we want him to be. He doesn’t exist in reality. As a mother of mixed race children, it makes no sense to me to just default to “white Santa.” If Santa is a figment of all of our imaginations – I want my child to celebrate one that looks like them. Or not. Basically – I want to let them know that he is many different things to many different people.
Growing up, my black friends had pictures of black Santa in their homes. I wasn’t confused by this at all – even as a grade-schooler my mind could wrap around the idea that people identified with others that looked like them. Why are we so hell-bent on not being inclusive when it comes to Santa? Remember Megyn Kelly’s infamous Fox-News freakout? When she addressed kids directly, telling them Santa and Jesus were both white? “Santa just is white… Santa is what he is. Jesus was a white man, too.” Mkay, Megyn. Addressing children directly through the television isn’t unhinged at all.
When my kids ask me if Santa is black or white, I say, “he’s whatever people want him to be. No one’s ever seen him in person – so we’re all guessing.” I think that’s a little saner than insisting that a fictional character is any race at all.
Image via Target
So thank you, Target and Minted, for the small reminder that yes — Santa is whatever we want him to be.
And that doesn’t need to be white.
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