Habari Gani?! For many Black people in the diaspora, the Christmas season arrives wrapped in glittering lights, gospel-infused carols, and warm gatherings steeped in tradition. And yet beneath the joy, there rests an uneasiness we often don’t name. Something in our spirits knows that much of what we celebrate during this time was constructed without us in mind, or worse-against us.
Christmas, as it exists in Western culture, was never designed for the liberation, affirmation, or cultural grounding of African-descended people. It is deeply embedded in colonial history, capitalism, and Euro-Christian traditions that were forced upon Black people through enslavement, missionary domination, and cultural erasure. As Dr. James Noel reminds us, European Christian holidays were instrumental in the “theological domestication” of enslaved Africans, used to discipline the body and control spiritual imagination rather than liberate it (Noel, 2009).
And yet, for generations, we have poured love, song, brilliance, creativity, and sacred power into a holiday that never truly saw us.
That does not mean we cannot gather, experience joy, or honor the sacred during December. But it does mean we deserve more. We deserve holidays rooted in our ancestral memory. Holidays free from white supremacist economic pressure. Holidays that celebrate our existence not as an afterthought, but as the central, beating heart of the celebration.
We deserve Makaya, Kwanzaa, and the reclamation of ritual that affirms who we are.
Makaya: Remembering the Spiritual Sovereignty of Haiti
Makaya season is grounded in Haitian cosmology, honoring ancestral strength, spiritual resilience, and the continuing presence of African memory in the Americas. Rooted in Vodou traditions that have often been demonized by colonial lenses, Makaya is not “witchcraft”—it is an affirmation of life, community, survival, and the interconnection of the living and the ancestral world. As scholars like Patrick Bellegarde-Smith and Claudine Michel have documented, Haitian Vodou traditions were central to anti-colonial resistance and national independence identity (Bellegarde-Smith & Michel, 2006).
Makaya asks us to sit in truth:
We survived.
We organized.
We liberated ourselves.
And our spirituality was foundational in that liberation.
That is something Christmas never celebrated.
Kwanzaa: A Modern Ritual with Ancient Roots
Kwanzaa is not “Black Christmas.” It is a celebration born from African philosophy, communal responsibility, and self-determination. Created by Dr. Maulana Karenga in 1966, Kwanzaa draws on African harvest traditions and communal ritual to center seven guiding principles: Umoja (Unity), Kujichagulia (Self-Determination), Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility), Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics), Nia (Purpose), Kuumba (Creativity), and Imani (Faith).
Instead of consumerism, Kwanzaa asks for consciousness.
Instead of obligation, it asks for intention.
Instead of capitalism, it asks for community care.
Kwanzaa is a refusal to allow whiteness to define joy for us. It invites us back into rhythm with our people.
Colonial Holidays vs. Cultural Memory
Christmas in the West is, undeniably, entangled in capitalism. The late bell hooks reminds us that white supremacist capitalist patriarchy turns even sacred ritual into commodified distraction (hooks, 2000). For Black families, Christmas often becomes a financial burden, social performance, and emotional strain.
Meanwhile, our own cultural traditions—African spiritual systems, Haitian ritual, Caribbean ancestral celebrations, and Black-created holidays like Kwanzaa—receive skepticism and hesitation because we were taught to distrust what comes from us.
That is not coincidence.
That is conditioning.
And we are allowed to unlearn it.
So, What Does This Mean for Black People Today?
It means we get to choose.
Not from a place of guilt.
Not from a place of shame.
From a place of liberation.
We can still enjoy the lights, the laughter, the music, and yes, even the food. But we do not have to pretend that Christmas is ours when it was introduced as a tool of domination and assimilation.
Claiming Makaya.
Honoring Kwanzaa.
Embracing African-centered ritual.
Reclaiming Black cultural holidays.
This is healing.
This is power.
This is reclamation.
How Do We Start Honoring Our Heritage This Season?
You don’t need to know everything.
You simply need to begin.
Here are meaningful first steps:
• Learn the meaning of Kwanzaa’s principles and practice at least one with your family
• Attend a Kwanzaa ceremony or host a small gathering in your home
• Learn about Makaya traditions and Haitian spiritual practices without fear-based lenses
• Read Afro-diasporic scholars, storytellers, and cultural historians
• Support Black-owned holiday markets instead of mainstream consumer traps
• Name your ancestors out loud. Call their names into the room.
• Talk with your children about why Black holidays matter.
Culture does not continue by accident.
Culture lives because we choose it.
This Is Not About Rejecting Joy
This is about aligning joy with truth.
Black people have always reimagined, recreated, and reclaimed spaces in which we were never supposed to thrive. This season can be another act of reclamation—a declaration that we deserve rituals that affirm us, honor us, and heal us.
We deserve holidays that see us.
Let’s Continue the Conversation
If this resonates, I invite you to continue reflecting, sharing, and reclaiming with community.
Follow, like, and share The Write Movement so more of us can gather around truth, healing, and cultural remembrance.
And join me on The Empress Addi Podcast, where we will continue this conversation with depth, history, story, and soul.
Let’s honor who we are.
Let’s honor where we come from.
Let’s celebrate holidays that celebrate us.
Selected References
Bellegarde-Smith, P., & Michel, C. (2006). Haitian Vodou: Spirit, Myth, and Reality. Indiana University Press.
hooks, b. (2000). All About Love: New Visions. William Morrow.
Noel, J. (2009). Black Religion and the Imagination of Matter in the Atlantic World. Palgrave Macmillan.
Karenga, M. (1997). Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture. University of Sankore Press.
Mbiti, John S. (1990). African Religions and Philosophy. Heinemann.
🖤 A Necessary Historical Caveat: Saint Nicholas and Black Sacred Memory
It is also essential to acknowledge that the cultural narrative around “Santa Claus” is far more complex than the commercialized white-bearded figure we see today. Historical scholarship, theological debates, and iconographic studies reveal that sacred Black imagery has long been erased, reinterpreted, or whitened across Christian traditions. Many scholars and cultural historians point to traditions such as the Black Madonnas of Europe, persistent imagery in Byzantine and African Christian art, and accounts from the Mediterranean world that suggest a far more racially and ethnically diverse sacred past than dominant Western depictions allow (Murphy 2012; Begg 2014).
Saint Nicholas of Myra—whose life inspired what eventually became Santa Claus—was a North African–adjacent bishop from the Eastern Mediterranean, a region deeply intertwined with Africa, the Middle East, and early Black Christian civilization. While historians do not universally claim him as “Black” in the contemporary racial sense, there is credible grounding to assert that the whitening of Saint Nicholas reflects the broader whitening of Christianity and suppression of African spiritual heritage in the West. In the cultural memory of the African diaspora, this erasure matters.
However, even this recovered truth does not overturn the core argument of this essay: that Black people deserve holidays that affirm our agency, our cultural memory, our histories of resistance, and our joy. Recognizing that elements of Christianity—and even Santa Claus—have African roots only strengthens the case that we have always been creators, holders, and transmitters of sacred meaning. It does not obligate us to remain tethered to traditions that no longer serve our wholeness. Instead, it empowers us to embrace celebrations like Makaya and Kwanzaa, which intentionally honor our lineage, self-definition, and living heritage.
Additional Suggested Sources for Your Personal Research
- Begg, Paul. The Cult of the Black Virgin.
- Murphy, Joseph. Santería: African Spirits in America.
- Oyěwùmí, Oyèrónkẹ́. The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses.
- Dubois, Laurent. Haiti: The Aftershocks of History (for Makaya cultural grounding).
- Karenga, Maulana. Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community and Culture.
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