Santa Claus doesn’t always wear red. She hides in a black coat indoors during winter like an Eskimo. Veins surface her arm like a congregation of lucid, river streams. White knuckled knees swell from her joints. A straight nose and a lopsided smile. Thin lips and a thick accent. Awkward, quiet nouns placed beside each other that sometimes render me embarrassed.

For a while, the ungrateful daughter in me resented the flaws that colored her. First were her rhetorical questions and open-ended statements that never seemed meaningful.

“You eat so little?”

“Why you don’t take more?”

They were always followed by absent-minded “huh” like a reflex to a perplexing statement. It made me yank my hair because as a third culture kid, who had long abandoned her broken English in her native country, I couldn’t approve of the blemishes that spiked her speech. The differences that made me used to stand out in school. The differences that colored me foreign.

The differences that made me lonely. I was ashamed of the language she still spoke but I walked away from to protect myself.

Those ugly words, the fragments of what she had stolen from others’ tongues that lingered then dissipated into thin air. I didn’t want that. They often held so little value especially in my home of three, where knowledge dictated who got to talk. She was always left standing, hands by her side. I hated it. The fact that I longed for a mother who’d inspire me to grow into this perfect mold in society because all I wanted to do was fit in.

But in the years that followed, as I matured, I began to see her withering petals bloom. Something in me unlocked. I began to notice the way she’d carry the heavier grocery bag every single time on the way home. The way she’d always wait for my dad and me to finish taking out our portions of the meal while she chewed on burnt, dry, cold, leftovers.

The way she’d smile with stiff, yet warm outstretched arms, shoulder width apart, and ask tenderly “How has your day been?” then demanded I give her a hug.

The way she’d timidly knock my door, and boast her online hauls. The way she’d peer into the crevice of my door at 3 am in the morning, half asleep, and ask “Why are you not in bed yet?” The ways she sacrificed. The cold cut sandwiches sitting in the fridge I’d wake up to find waiting for me to devour. The way she gave, but never took. All the little presents I’d wake up or fall asleep to- like the song I’d find her humming.

It took me a long time to realize that beauty isn’t defined by anyone else but you. Beauty isn’t how much makeup you wear, or how much time you spend combing your hair. Or how much your accent makes you American sounding. Or how much you fit in. Beauty is the way someone could be as selfless as Santa Claus who sacrifices her life and time to make you happy. It’s all of the ways you feel warm and loved, and not only on Christmas day.