OPINION
I love Christmas. I love everything about this festive time of year. My first 11 years of Christmas were spent in Southeast Asia. My father was Hindu, so it was up to my Pākehā mum to teach us about all the Western Christmas festivities she grew up with in New Zealand. We’d decorate a tropical pot plant with tinsel and whatever Christmassy ornaments my grandmother would have sent Mum in her annual holiday care package. Mum would get terribly homesick at that time of year, and I remember those care packages were like a lifeline. Grandma even included her famous Christmas fruitcake, a nostalgic piece of home that helped Mum to feel connected while living in a faraway land surrounded by people who didn’t look like her and didn’t celebrate like her. Nonetheless, Mum was determined to make Christmas feel special in our home.
When I was 5, Dad made a special appearance at my kindergarten. He’d been asked by my teacher to dress up as Santa for the Christmas party. There was no outrage from the other children about Santa having dark skin because as far as they were concerned, he was the real deal. You see, where I grew up, it wasn’t unusual to encounter an Indian, Malay or Chinese Santa Claus. Santa was someone who looked like us. He was our dad, an uncle, a grandparent, or family friend dressed up in a red suit with a big belly and sack full of presents.
I discovered the devastating news that Santa was a make-believe character a year prior to my family relocating to New Zealand. My younger brother still believed, so I was determined to help keep the dream alive for as long as possible. Christmas felt different our first year in New Zealand, though, where was brown Santa? All of a sudden I became acutely aware of the fact that in New Zealand, this festive time of the year didn’t really include or celebrate people who looked like my father, brother or I - it was literally a White Christmas.
It’s 2022, and nothing has changed. This year, I decided that I would actively look for Christmas decorations that reflected the surrounding diversity. Much to my disappointment, the decorations available are as homogenous as ever. There’s a real lack of representation in New Zealand when it comes to shopping for Christmas merchandise. I’ve ordered a special brown-skinned Christmas angel for the top of my tree from a company in the UK called March Muses that specialises in diversifying Christmas celebrations. I’m not a parent, but I am an aunty and, as my niece and nephew get older, it’s important to my family that they’re surrounded by things that feel truly inclusive. I want them to see a Christmas angel with caramel skin like me, I want my nephew to have an elf on a shelf that looks like his appa (father in Tamil) and I want them to experience nothing but pure joy if their dark-skinned grandpa dresses up like Santa for them. Apparently, people in America can now walk into a Walmart and shop for Christmas decorations in a whole array of skin tones. Imagine going to Kmart with your children and they’re able to choose a Santa or a sugar plum fairy that looks just like them. Right now, in this country, that’s a luxury only afforded to families who are Pākehā.
