After receiving racist blowback when he put up a Black Santa in his Arkansas yard, Chris (not his real name) decided to do something about it. “Representation is important to me,” he says, “because growing up, I didn’t see it.”
So in the summer of 2021, Chris said goodbye to his wife and daughter, now 5, and attended the New England Santa Society’s Santa Camp in New Hampshire.
There, he discovered there were many others who didn’t see themselves represented in Santa: Levi, a transgender Santa, and Fin, a Santa with spina bifida who communicates with an iPad and gets help from his mother, Suki.
The trio are featured in the new HBO Max documentary Santa Camp, which begins streaming Nov. 17 and raises the question: Does Santa always have to be a White guy with a beard? The answer at the heart of Santa Camp: absolutely not, because Santa is for everyone.
In the trailer, which PEOPLE exclusively premiered, scores of aspiring Santas, Mrs. Clauses and elves gather to learn their Christmastime craft.
“I was curious about how Santas learn to be Santa,” the film’s director, Nick Sweeney, tells PEOPLE.
“Then I found out that there was actually a summer camp for Santa Clauses where they sleep in bunk beds, and sit around a campfire,” he continues, “and my mind just kind of started spinning, like how on earth could this exist?”
During Santa Camp that summer, however, organizers had an additional mission: tackling the lack of diversity in the industry.
“The issue we’ve run into is that people just have a very specific idea of what Santa should look like,” Santa Dan Greenleaf, co-founder of the New England Santa Society, says in the film. “A child wants somebody who looks like them. What’s the problem?” The solution? Bring in a “lot of new Santas,” he says.
Levi, of Chicago, attended with his wife Heidi, who is in training to become a Mrs. Claus. With a PhD, she asks to be called “Dr. Claus.”
“I felt very welcomed at camp,” Levi, 44, tells PEOPLE. “I felt just part of the crew, part of the Santa gang, so it was great.”
Wishing to be known as Trans Santa Levi, the film reflects “being my whole self as Santa,” Levi says, “and living my own truth as Santa.”
For Levi, meeting a trans Santa as a child would have made a huge difference. “I would’ve understood myself at a younger age,” he says. “I think I could have become my whole self sooner in life.”
But not everyone is ready to embrace a trans Santa. A few months after camp, Levi and Heidi appeared at a church event for LGBTQ youth billed as “Meet Trans Santa & Dr. Claus,” where several angry protestors gathered outside.
“This church is infected,” a man shouts in a scene captured in the film.
The documentary’s director knew in advance that there could be protestors, and security was ready. But learning that a group of Proud Boys showed up in a van was a frightening surprise.
“You see this footage of Proud Boys and these kind of brawls,” Sweeney tells PEOPLE. “My heart was definitely racing. There’s a few little moments where I’m talking to them and there’s a shaky sound to my voice. It was scary.”
Inside, meanwhile, Trans Santa Levi was meeting with young people who sought a Santa just like them. He and Heidi had no idea what was going on outside.
“We were very fortunate that there was security in place,” says Levi. “And really, not just for us, but for the children that night.”
The experience has certainly not scared Levi from making appearances. Instead, it “made me want to do it even more and be even more visible,” says Levi, who has a few gigs already booked with Dr. Claus Heidi for this coming season.
“You can’t back down,” Levi continues, “just because people are uneducated or don’t know.”
