Late Night Conversations with Black Santa

Chris Cringle. Santa Claus. Jolly Ol' Saint Nick. These names are not new to us. We are all familiar with who he is and his purpose. He is the undisputed face of the holidays. The happy go lucky, round bellied man who flies around rewarding the good kids in the world on December 25th every year. A figure head of holiday season hope. A spokes person for coke-a-cola. 

There was a time when I had simply dismissed him as a children's tale. As I'm sure is the sentiments for many adults in the world. I felt like he was nothing more then an excuse to keep kids on their best behavior for the rest of the year. That is until I met the man.

Don't bother re-reading that paragraph, I'll say it again. I have met Santa Claus. I know you probably are having a hard time believing me, and you're probably going to request that I pee in a cup, but I promise... I have met Jolly Saint Nick.

It happened by chance two years ago.

I was at my dads house on Christmas Eve that year. Jesse, Jake (the son of my dads girlfriend at the time) and myself were sleepin baggin it up down stairs talking madden, and other kinds of trash. Jesse and Jake had crashed out, and I decided to follow suite, but needed to shit before. After I filed the paper work, and flushed the specimen, it was time to return to my bag. Thats when outside arose such a clatter.

I went to the window and saw a sleigh and some reindeer. 'What a gay Christmas decoration' I thought. Some people go real over the top with their holiday spirit, and sometimes I wish I could just get like five minutes in a dark room to beat their self serving ass's. 

Small rant: Whats the point of having excessive decorations and bright lights covering your house and yard? Are you trying to fuck with airplanes flying over head? No one gives a shit that you dropped more money on decorations then you did on the presents you are handing out. 

I take that back. People do give a shit. It pisses people off. You are never going to hear this conversation, "man this is awesome. A real life nativity scene? You are a true pioneer! Who would've though to turn your whole lawn and house into one big brigh flashing light? INCREDIBLE!" But you are likely to hear someone say, "wow, this your house?" (you nod) "YOU DUMB SON OF A BITCH, I'm trying to sleep and your flashing lights are giving me a fucking seizure!" and then they proceed to beat your ass.

So lets avoid a hospital visit and jail time this year, and just have you admit that your excessive lights DO make you look like a prick. Just take them down, and go spend your time with your family. Thank you.

*Return to the story* 

I realized this wasn't just a decoration when a huge man in a red coat hopped off the sleigh and slung a sack over his back. He came straight for my dads house. There was no fire place, so he was going to need to use the front door. The door I was a step away from. My butt hole was puckering.

This is probably where I need to clarify something. I don't usually get scared by the appearence of Santa clones. They're nothing but fat white guys who are probably unemployed 11 months of the year. Not a fight I couldn't win. But this one is different. Mainly because he was black. Yes, Santa is black. He doesn't look like a jolly grandfather, rather he looks like Kimbo Slice with a bigger belly.

So now you understand why I said I was a tad frightened when this street fighter look alike with a Santa hat came strolling into the house like he owned the place- at 3 am. I will now accept your apologies. I mean how many of you would've either said a hail mary, found a gun, called the cops or all three. I just froze. Don't you dare call me a racist, Kimbo Slice is scary.

He opened the door and immediately looked at me. I'm sure he didn't even need the little light from the porch that was shinning off my face to tell I was damn near shitting my pants. Don't even act like I was being over dramatic. Lets just say, it's a good thing I took the Browns to the Super Bowl before this meeting. 20 year olds don't need to be shitting themselves.

"Whats really hood, bitch?" He sneered as he strutted through the door. It looked like a real life mug shot. His teeth were mostly replaced with gold. He had an assortment of huge gold chains that hid his chest. I nodded. I wasn't sure what was going on at this point. His shoulders spanned like two of me. This might've been the scariest, biggest dude I'd ever seen. Then couple that with the fact that he was super dark chocolate and blending in with the darkness of the room, and I think we can assume that I was a wee bit intimidated. 

"Who are you?" I asked. When you think about it, that was a fair question. A scary black man dressed up as Santa, in the living room of my fathers house at 3 am. He took a step back, and sat his sack down. He stuck his head out side the door and looked at his sleigh. Then gave himself an up, down, side to side and then looked back at me.

"Who do I look like? I'm Santa Claus motha' fucka'." 

"But dude, you're black." He just stared blankly back at me. 'Oh Shit,' I thought, he may kill me now.  Instead, he just slung his sack back over his shoulder, and moved past me to where the tree was at. He started to unload presents and place them under the tree. I couldn't believe it. I'm not sure if I was more shocked at the fact that he was actually Santa, or that he wasn't stealing shit.

After my imagination stopped fueling the thoughts of Black Santa actually being their to pillage the house and/or rape me had ceased fire, I began to feel confident enough to talk to the man. The only problem was, I had nothing to say to him. I didn't see how ' so, uh, thanks for not stealing my shit or raping me' was going to lead to a worth wild conversation. So I waited. 

He stopped packing presents and looked at me. " You got anything to eat?" His gold plated mug came back for another exhibition.

"Yeah, I guess we got some cookies. Does that work?" I asked. It was the first thing I could think of.

"Shit yeah, I got the munchies son. The last place I was at had some rotten ass cookies. Bring them here, and a big glass of milk." So I did. I hooked up a whole plate of chocolate chip cookies. When I came back, Black Santa's sack was empty and laying on the floor. I looked around and couldn't see him. Had he just left? I ran to the still open door, but the sleigh was still parked in the middle of the street. "You lookin for someone, youngsta?"

"Uh, I got the cookies." I had totally overlooked him. He was sitting in my dads recliner off in the corner. Completely camouflaged by the darkness. I could now make him out, he was sitting down, feet up, sippin on what appeared to be a forty.  I brought the plate over to him, but because of my shaking, I dropped a few of them to his feet. 

He looked up at me and chuckled. "Shit, am I really that scary homie?" I shrugged.

"I just didn't expect you to be black." Which is the truth. When you spend your whole life recognizing a fat white bearded,  rosey cheeked, white dude as the Giver of Christmas Joy, and then late one night a massive black man comes crip walking into your living room, well it's kind of unsettling to say the least.

"Yeah it hasn't always been this way." He said, taking another sip from his forty.

"You haven't always been black? Thats weird."

"What ch'you stupid or somethin? Santa Claus hasn't always been black." He paused for a second. I spent that second hoping he was going to add more to that statement because I as lost. " Santa Claus is a title youngsta."

"Like the pope?" 

"Yeah, I guess." He shook his head, and started to load up some more pictures. I could tell he wasn't getting annoyed. But I was fascinated. I demanded more knowledge. This was bigger then when I found out how babies were made (ok maybe not that big, but nevertheless- thank you skin-a-max).

He was playing coy for awhile, refusing to divulge most of the information. But I kept poking, and probing, trying to find some information. He finally cracked after another 15 minutes of me begging and reassuring him that no one would believe me that I talked to Santa, I finally got some more out of him about the truth of Santa Claus.

My pope comment had been tongue and cheek, but apparently it's exactly how it was. A Santa Claus would serve until he died, then a committee of elves would pick the next Santa Claus. I was very relieved to find out it wasn't at all like that gay Tim Allen series that had them turning into Santa as soon as they put the coat on. In fact the Santa Clauses have been very distinguishable. They decided it would be fiscally irresponsible, pointless and very ineffective to inform the world everytime the face of Santa changes. Perfect example, just look at what happened to Michael Jacksons career when he lost his nose.

In fact LaAndre Claus was the first Black Santa Claus. Something he was very proud of. "So, I mean what other types of Santas' have there been?" I asked.

"Well, the last one was a Jewish dude. But he only served one year, he couldn't hack it." It made perfect sense.  I mean not necessarily why he was only able to do one year, but why last year I only got a Top and two used dvd's for Christmas from Santa.

About that time, my boules came calling again. I had been pounding through the plate of cookies that I brought out for Black Santa, and they were now asking to be released.  I got up, and went to the can. When I came  back, he was gone. The door was shut, and the sleigh was gone. The only proof of my late night conversation with Black Santa, was the beautiful assortment of presents left under the tree. I smiled, and went back to bed.

I awoke the next day to my sisters going crazy over presents. The whole family sat around, and we were handed out presents. Over the next hour was laughed, opened gifts and listened to my little sisters exuberantly exclaim how each gift was 'just what they wanted'.  Santa came through big too. Giving Jake an Xbox 360.

"Oh Yeah!" Every male in the house exclaimed. We knew that the rest of the day was going to be devoted to playing Madden on the Xbox on my dads beautiful 48" Sony flat screen. As soon as the last gift was opened, us boys peeled off into the other room. When we got in there, I was reminded once again of my late night conversation with Black Santa. The tv was gone. 

Once again, my dads 48" FLAT SCREEN WAS GONE!

I've spent alot of time thinking about my conversation with Black Santa, and the missing tv. And you know what? I don't think "LeAndre" was actually a Santa Claus. Also, Maybe a top and two used dvd's weren't such  bad presents after all.