The Only Christmas Book You Need Is This One About Black Santa and His Husband

Around this time last year, Daniel Kibblesmith, a writer on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, published a tweet with a very funny and also very sweet idea of how he and his wife (fellow writer Jennifer Wright) would introduce their future children to the idea of Santa Claus.

https://twitter.com/kibblesmith/status/805116322787033089

The tweet was inspired by the racist backlash directed at the Mall of America over their decision to hire a Black Santa Claus that year. And because Twitter has changed just about everything regarding the way most media and entertainment-related industries operated, Kibblesmith announced a few months later that that 140-character pitch was going to be a full-fledged book.

https://twitter.com/kibblesmith/status/846731734364426240

Santa’s Husband is available now and I cannot recommend it enough. It’s a short, adorable and super touching kid’s (but really everyone’s) book with art by Ashley Quatch. It tells the story of Santa (who is Black) and his husband (who is White). Santa’s husband, you see, is really supportive of Santa’s career and frequently helps out with his mall appearances, etc, and is often mistaken for Santa himself.

As you might imagine, Kibblesmith has faced quite a lot of harassment online. A whole bunch of grown-ass adults sure do feel confident that they know the true race and sexual orientation of a fictionalized figure, and the anger they feel at anyone who proposes an alternative is, well, it’s a lot.

But as Kibblesmith writes in the book, “People have imagined Santa Claus hundreds of different ways over the years! Who is anyone to say what the real Santa looks like? Maybe Santa Clauses can come in all shapes and colors and sizes! Just the families that Santa Clause visits all over the world.”

https://twitter.com/kibblesmith/status/930131003489779712

(image: Amazon)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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