Does Santa Come To Harlem?
My fattest year and my controversial poem from the 90's
Someone tagged me in a very adorable photo of myself where I was a small lad, it was from a few years back, I screamed because it was a punch to the gut. This has been my fattest year, how do I know that if I don’t get on a scale? Because I have photos where I compare my old self to my new self. Yeah, I don’t have time to compare myself to all of you on the internet when I’m too busy competing with myself.
Insert a problematic relative wanting to find a solution to my troubles.
“Why don’t you meal plan?” Meal planning is a cult.
I actually have taste buds and the idea of eating organic chicken with cilantro lime rice every day is not human, you’re a robot if you do this, ok? Elon Musk created you in a lab and we are on to your ruse!
See I don’t necessarily want to change anything about my weight, I don’t want advice, and I want to stop comparing the very much alive me to an old me that wasn’t that great. If you didn’t know… which I try not to mention every 5 seconds I could’ve totally made Long covid my personality trait, I fumbled the bag there. I have long covid, and with this mysterious disability where my teeth are starting to fall out my legs go numb my eyes feel like they bleed. For the past two years, I haven’t had one morning where I didn’t wake up with what feels like every person in New York City playing piano very badly in my head for several minutes. ( leave it to me to give light to a chronic headache) I am conflicted with me now and then this version of me that I don’t know. I’m putting an unrealistic expectation of myself to be something that doesn’t exist in the future, at least not that I know of.
My fattest year yet is one where I am confident, one where I’m honest with myself, where there are things I do want to change, and that is appreciating that I am alive, that this body went through some rough times and it is still hanging in there with me despite the fact that I do want to hide and I loathe clothes.
I will eat I won’t deprive myself of my cooking talents this holiday and on the topic of comparing myself I went ever further and visited an even younger version of myself and I went to comparing again and laughed at how consistent I’ve been in my angst, even the poems I’ve written as a child were a mix of vulnerability, honesty, and opinions, and I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t question and critique Santa Claus and Christmas all together.
I wrote a poem at nine years old before I knew the history of the Black Santa, our first Santa in Harlem, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson a multi-talented person, who could sing tap dance and had the gift of captivating an audience during the 1930s on Broadway. He one day put on a suit and didn’t want the children of Harlem to feel forgotten. He was coined Harlem’s first “ Negro Santa Claus” and for years Black Santas have been cruising the streets handing out chocolate and treats to every child who craves a treat.
Thank you to the family for never letting me forget it.
I have to sing Santa Claus is Coming to Town,
What town?
What town is Santa coming to?
Which Santa is coming to town?
Santa has never come to my town unless it was Bojangles
Maybe my Santa will this year
But the song says,
You better not cry,
I’m crying because my friend is moving,
My mom is crying because she works hard
Will Santa still come to town if we cry?
I don’t pout but I do shout,
If I shout Santa won’t come?
We shout in this neighborhood,
We shout for fun,
We shout so loud the white people from miles away call the police,
Shh! So be good for goodness sake,
I’ve been good this year
I wrote my list,
Will Santa read it?
Will Santa understand why I cry?
Why we pout
Before I sing this song I want to know
Does Santa Come to Harlem?
Listen I was on my Langston Hughes as a baby yall weren’t ready.
The white Santa never showed up, and my dad would’ve had to beat an old white guy climbing on our fire escape anyway so it all worked out. But I realized that the Christmas white people had was very different than mine, my mother often reflected she would rest, just trying to escape from a long December month that wanted us to work so we can then spend. Our first Santa came to Harlem in 1936, he didn’t have to sneak in the middle of the night, he wasn’t secretive, he didn’t have to hide who he was, and there was no list that needed to be written because we are all good. Even when we pout The Black Santa comes to town, and he looks like family.
Be fat be merry and a message to the tourists that have arrived, share the sidewalk, speed up, fold the pizza, and do not ask me what train or ferry you need to take to see the Statue of Liberty, I genuinely don’t know.
Christmas in New York there’s no other place I’d want to end my fattest year.
-C
Merry CHRISTMASSSSSS!