The Christmas season has already started in suburban London, where Santa Claus and his elves decided to gift bystanders a memorable sight – doing a bhangra to a Christmas song. In this video, you can see how the man in the red suit and his little helpers groove to Merry Christmas Everyone, a song by Shakin’ Stevens, remixed to give it a Punjabi flavour.
This video is doing rounds on Twitter. Although some viewers remarked that this is as an example of “cultural appropriation”, others were delighted at the sight of the “multicultural Santa Claus”.
This was a welcome sign of the Christmas spirit in United Kingdom, where concerns about immigration were one of the factors that drove Brexit, or the decision to exit the European Union.
The Punjabi folk dance has also blended with the Christmas spirit in city of Fort St John in Canada, where a group of international students donned Santa hats and pulled off the moves in the snow.
This combination of Christmas and bhangra is not new to San Jose, a district of California in the US, which has a large Indian diaspora. A dance troupe called Bhangra Empire has been been given Santa Claus centrestage in their Christmas performances since 2012. Last year, it was Mr and Mrs Santa Claus killing the dance floor. You can watch the video below.
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