>>97443145My parents were so fucking hyped when my dad’s charity club had a santa meet and greet thing for the club member’s kids when I was in kindergarten. After I was a lot older they still talked about it fondly. “Wow anon wasn’t that one time when you actually got to MEET Santa when you were in kindergaten just magical?? And he recognized you and knew your NAME and handed you a present with the exact toy you had ASKED for! That was so much cooler than a mall Santa, you must have actually believed it was really him!”
It’s clear to me now that they had a lot more fun with that experience than I did. For me, as a kindergartener, the whole thing was very common place and unremarkable, except of course I was happy that I got a toy. But, my parents told me I would meet a man dressed in red with a white beard who would give me a gift and I did. I had no reason to doubt his identity or ability for magic than I had for doubting anything else that my parents ever told me or anything else that ever happened to me, because I just hadn’t had enough experience to know anything otherwise.
It’s kinda similar to the way my grampa had a lot of fun when I was a kid telling me really common jokes that everyone had a heard a million times but I hadn’t, because when you hear them for the very first time you fall for them completely and that’s a very unique feeling for the joke teller who never gets to tell them because everyone already knows them.
