Introduction

When I think of Christmas, I think of shopping on Thirty-fourth Street in New York City where people of all colors troop through the cold and slush to get that extra-special something for the occasion. All the vendors work overtime trying to push a bunch of bullshit off on you that you really don’t need, but you might catch a ten-dollar gift for that aunt you never really felt anyway.

Christmas is the one day of the year when people try to be nice to one another, even if they don’t mean it, because of the promise of old St. Nick coming to drop off hope to those who’ve been good and blocks of coal for the naughty. Picture children with rosy cheeks, tucked heavily into mittens and scarves, learning how to ice-skate for the first time, and in the next breath picture the kids that gotta wake up to nothing because their crack-head uncle stole all their shit to get a holiday blast. Can you picture it?

From suburban America to the most battered slums of Louisiana every kid felt that tingle of excitement when Christmas rolled around, ’cause we were all duped into believing that some fat white dude in a red suit was gonna come drop the latest toys down our chimney, even though most of us didn’t have chimneys. Back in the day it made perfect sense, until you got a little older and realized that the life expectancy of an old white man climbing in and out of windows in the hood is short as hell.

Even when the myth was dispelled we still couldn’t wait for Christmas. It was all good because no matter whether we got what we wanted or not, it didn’t sting so bad because we got something new. That was a rare privilege for someone coming out of a single-parent home where the city kicked in more toward the rent than our biological father did. If you wanted the new one hundred and fifty dollar Jordans but ended up getting long johns, you felt like shit on a stick, but you wouldn’t tell your old bird that because you knew what kind of work she had to put in to make that happen.

My most potent Christmas memory was sitting on the lap of a Santa impostor stressing the urgency of me getting a King Kong doll, but instead I got underwear and a cartoon videotape that I couldn’t watch because pops took our VCR. I still owe Santa an ass whipping for that one.

I have my own idea of what Christmas is about and what it has meant to me through the years, but in the pages of this book, you’ll get several different takes, all with the same conclusion: ain’t nothing quite like Christmas in the hood.

K’wan
Bestselling author of Hood Rat, Eve,
and the forthcoming Blow