British museum calls for ‘decolonizing’ Santa
The Brighton and Hove Museum group claims that Father Christmas reinforces colonial and patriarchal ideas
A British museum has called for Father Christmas to be “decolonized,” arguing that the traditional Santa Claus promotes colonial and patriarchal ideas and should instead “learn about different cultures.”
On Sunday, British media outlets drew attention to a blog post by the publicly funded Brighton and Hove Museums group, which claims that the story of a “white, Western Santa who judges all children’s behavior” reinforces colonial assumptions of cultural superiority, particularly through the “naughty or nice” list.
The post, titled ‘Decolonizing Father Christmas’ and written by the museum’s Joint Head of Culture Change, Simone LaCorbiniere, questions Santa’s role as a moral authority, claiming he cannot fairly assess “Indigenous children practicing their own cultural traditions.”
The museum suggested that the story of Father Christmas threatens to erase indigenous cultural practices and histories and criticized the traditional portrayal of Santa supervising elves, insisting that it reinforces ideas of hierarchy, authority, and marginalization.
The blog urges parents to “challenge the colonial gaze” by rejecting the naughty and nice list, describing it as a “Western binary,” and instead proposes reframing Santa as a “more diverse character who celebrates cultural exchange.”
It also proposes portraying Santa as working alongside elves as an equal, including people from around the world in his workshop, and introducing “Mother Christmas” to show that “men don’t have to be in charge.”
The blog post, originally published in 2023 but still available on the museum’s website, has sparked a fresh wave of backlash, with politicians and commentators ridiculing the proposal to decolonize Santa.
Toby Young, founder of the Free Speech Union, described the museum as “po-faced” while Reform UK MP Sarah Pochin said the ideas reflected a broader pattern of “woke” activism.
Alka Sehgal Cuthbert, director of Don’t Divide Us, told The Telegraph on Sunday that those behind such “laughable” proposals are trying to “rupture our sense of belonging to a common past and culture” and should not be getting public funding or official endorsements from “witless museums.”
A spokesman for the museum said people were “free to agree or disagree” with the blog post.
