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What if Santa was Black? Or Female?
Dec. 13th, 2023 06:24 pmOn a quick errand to CVS this weekend I saw an interesting display: a life-sized, Black Santa doll.
They also had a female Black Santa doll, though it wasn't 6 feet tall.
These got me thinking, what did Santa— the real Santa, aka Saint Nicholas— look like?
There was a real Saint Nicholas. He was a Christian bishop in the 3rd and 4th century CE, in the city of Myra, which is today Demre, Turkey. He was born to a Greek family, though possibly in another nearby city that's also part of modern-day Turkey.
I mention Nicholas's ancestry because as a Greek he probably wasn't Black. He probably wouldn't have been white, either, or at least not what is often thought of as white. The popularized modern images we have of Santa Claus were created in the 19th century in North America, drawing heavily from northern European yule traditions. The modern concept of Santa Claus is actually way more tied to Odin than a Greek guy born in Turkey.
So, what would a Greek guy born in Turkey have looked like? The oldest art piece I found in a search, a religious painting from the 11th century CE, depicts him as light brown. How accurate is that? It's 700 years later, so the artist was likely working from his understanding of what people from Turkey tend to look like combined with some amount of his own cultural norms.
Another painting I found from the 13th century shows Saint Nicholas a bit lighter but still about the color of cork. A few examples of non-Western art from the 14th through 18th centuries depict him as much darker. Some Western art from the 18th century depicts him as light skinned Greek.
Any of these could be accurate, though I imagine the first two, with a light brown or olive skin tone, are the best estimates. Other Western art as far back as the 14th century depicts Saint Nicholas with a pale, northern European complexion. That's almost certainly inaccurate.
They also had a female Black Santa doll, though it wasn't 6 feet tall.
These got me thinking, what did Santa— the real Santa, aka Saint Nicholas— look like?
There was a real Saint Nicholas. He was a Christian bishop in the 3rd and 4th century CE, in the city of Myra, which is today Demre, Turkey. He was born to a Greek family, though possibly in another nearby city that's also part of modern-day Turkey.
I mention Nicholas's ancestry because as a Greek he probably wasn't Black. He probably wouldn't have been white, either, or at least not what is often thought of as white. The popularized modern images we have of Santa Claus were created in the 19th century in North America, drawing heavily from northern European yule traditions. The modern concept of Santa Claus is actually way more tied to Odin than a Greek guy born in Turkey.
So, what would a Greek guy born in Turkey have looked like? The oldest art piece I found in a search, a religious painting from the 11th century CE, depicts him as light brown. How accurate is that? It's 700 years later, so the artist was likely working from his understanding of what people from Turkey tend to look like combined with some amount of his own cultural norms.
Another painting I found from the 13th century shows Saint Nicholas a bit lighter but still about the color of cork. A few examples of non-Western art from the 14th through 18th centuries depict him as much darker. Some Western art from the 18th century depicts him as light skinned Greek.
Any of these could be accurate, though I imagine the first two, with a light brown or olive skin tone, are the best estimates. Other Western art as far back as the 14th century depicts Saint Nicholas with a pale, northern European complexion. That's almost certainly inaccurate.
