“Black Santa Thrives!” is a 3D interactive website featuring the trillest Santa that has ever hit the net by Mark Digital. The website utilizes technology from Blend4Web and three.js with images that were made in Daz3D using basic OpenGL rendering. It was key to the process to create the web experience with programs and tools that are completely free and can be made on computers with little processing power.

I grew up in a house where we had ornaments and imagery of both black and white Santas, but the Black Santa was always at the top of the tree, or had some other prominent placement. The idea was never that one Santa was better than the other, but that we, as black children could be anything we wanted, and we could adopt narratives to empower us.

Being Black Santa isn’t just being Santa, its representing your entire culture, making children of all races feel joy and inclusion while taking backlash from racists, and people like Megyn Kelly who perceive Santa as inherently white even though it’s a fictional character. In a list of about 21 A-list actors who have played Santa Claus only one of them was a non-white male, being Whoopi Goldberg in Call Me Claus.

With “Black Santa Thrives!” we embody the most ratchet Santa possible. We need a Woke Santa who understands why #BlackLivesMatter and struggles with his “sugar” during the holidays.