It's been said that you should never meet your idols.

It was Christmas of 2005 that I came face to face with mine.

Someone the majority of people don't believe in, after a certain age.

I was ten years old at the time and still held onto my beliefs, regardless of the inherent

mocking that it would earn.

Joanna, my oldest sister, Joe, or Joe Joe, to her friends, outright laughed at my insistence

of the man in the hat was real.

But she was always a logical thinker, even when she was much younger.

While I was only three or four, she rolled her eyes at my excitement about the arrival of

old Saint Nick, having never bought into it even when she was just a little girl, according

to our dad.

That's fine, I thought.

It doesn't matter if you believe in him, because he believes in you.

Not the most well thought out in an argument, but it was good enough for an imaginative

kid who couldn't stand the thought of his sister, heading up with a stocking full of

coal, even if she was being a jerk about the whole thing.

When that December dragged by at a snail's pace, or so it felt to a kid eagerly anticipating

whatever new goodies may be awaiting him in the morning of the 25th, I forged together

my plan to prove for wrong once and for all.

Sure, I can't deny that the satisfaction of having a well deserved I told you so, to

great Joe on Christmas morning wasn't at least a little bit behind my motivations, but I

also couldn't resist the opportunity to meet the fabled jolly man in the red suit.

...