This will be my first Christmas since losing my treasured collection of Black Santas. They, along with the rest of my belongings and my Altadena home, were reduced to rubble in the catastrophic Eaton fire in January.
The loss hit me all over again this holiday season, when my daughter and I would usually be taking these heirlooms out of storage to decorate the tree and our home. I find myself asking a question that has no easy answer: How do you rebuild something that was filled with irreplaceable love?
My grandmother, who taught ceramics classes, made me my very first Black Santa Claus. That Santa was small, maybe 7 inches tall, dressed in his traditional red and white suit. The only thing that stood out about him was his skin color.
I grew up in a small town in Illinois, where I never saw African American Santas or angels or any other holiday figures. I’d always loved Christmas, a time when my family gathered together and made memories playing board games or building snowmen, but having a Santa that looked like me made my connection to the holiday even deeper.
All of the earliest items in my collection were handmade because you couldn’t find Black Santas in the stores in the 1970s. Instead, family members purchased white Santas and painted over them for me.
Over time, I started to encounter more Black Santas in retail spaces, but the selection was always hit or miss. Some Christmases, I’d be disappointed by Santas that felt carelessly constructed or haphazardly painted. Other years, I would find beautiful Black Santas just waiting to be brought home. I particularly treasured one light-up Mr. and Mrs. Claus my mom found for me more than 30 years ago. During long December nights, I’d read in their comforting glow.
My collection blossomed into more than 80 ornaments and well over 85 figurines. Some danced, some sang, one even recited “The Night Before Christmas.” In the late 1990s, Hallmark issued a series of African American Santa keepsakes that I absolutely adored. My birthday is in October, and all my family members knew what to give me until I’d collected every last one. By the end, I had two tubs of Hallmark ornaments.
You never know where you’ll find a great Santa. Perhaps my favorite one in the whole collection was a Santa I purchased from a local drugstore about 15 years ago. He stood 5 feet tall and could recite Christmas poetry. My family came to know him very well, as he was always an honored guest at our annual Christmas Eve gathering.
When I was young, my mom always made it a point to host Christmas in Illinois. After I got married and moved to my husband’s hometown, Altadena, we flew back for the holidays less frequently. Eventually, my husband and I began hosting our own celebration. A California Christmas was a big change: For one thing, I was accustomed to spending the holiday bundled up inside, not sitting out on the patio. Spending Christmas here also meant seeing less familiar faces from home. But Altadena welcomed us with open arms, and soon we brought in a new community to celebrate with us. All the while, I had my Santas, who represented my loved ones from the Midwest.
My daughter and I brought the Santas out from the garage like clockwork each November to start decorating our home, and we kept them up well into the new year. They were still on display the evening of Jan. 7, when we evacuated Altadena. To make an impossible situation worse, just that morning, my husband had been hospitalized. He remained in critical condition as our home and 10,000 others were lost in the flames.
It’s hard to look back on that time. But one good memory stands out: a spring day I went to visit my husband at his rehab center and saw two Black Santa figures waiting for me on his windowsill. They were a gift from one of his friends, who left them there with a note telling me that these dolls were also without a home, and asking if I could care for them. Sometime after that, two other friends brought me Santas. My 94-year-old aunt got me one for my birthday. And just the other day, a stranger who learned what had happened to my collection gifted me four more Santas.
My family has been helping, too, nudging me when I need a push. I hadn’t even wanted to put up a tree this Christmas, but when my husband and I went away on a weekend trip, my daughter secretly installed a four-foot one in our small two-bedroom rental. On that trip, my husband — who has been texting me links to Black Santas he thinks I’d like — also bought me a new, large Santa to display. He doesn’t read “The Night Before Christmas,” but he sparkles with the magic of the season.
My heart is heavy this Christmas. I’m grateful my family is alive. I think about how, if we had gone to sleep that January night in our home, we might not be. Still, I am mourning all that burned in the flames, and I’m struggling with how to move forward, when so many traditions I’d held close feel lost or distant.
Having to start my collection all over again is heartbreaking. So many of the heirlooms I lost are irreplaceable, like the ones from my grandmother and my mom, who are no longer with us. But whether I’m ready or not, new Santas are starting to accumulate. Just the other day, I told my daughter the place was beginning to look like Santaland. I know the new Santas won’t erase the grief, and they won’t replace what was lost. But I hope in time they might become something new: new memories, new joy and new moments I can hold on to.
Katrina Freeny is a retired Social Security Administration claims representative and an avid reader, scrapbooker and collector. This article was produced in partnership with Zócalo Public Square.
