Every Christmas-celebrating child comes to the shocking realization that their parents were Santa Claus all along at some point in their life. It sucks and makes Christmas just a bit less magical from then on. However for my family, this was absolutely not the case. My sister and I discovered that the magical Santa that every Christmas song and book spoke of, for us and a lot of other kids, was quite literally our dad.

For years, we’d been literally telling our dad what we wanted for Christmas and magically Santa Claus knew exactly what we wanted. It must’ve been a funny kind of irony for my mom to watch, knowing what we didn’t.

My dad started his Santa career when he was just 16 years old. Now, he’s celebrating his 30th Christmas as Santa Claus. I haven’t heard much about the earlier Santa gigs, but I know in some of the earlier days, my mom used to dress up as Mrs. Claus and lend him a hand. These days, he visits libraries and Christmas parties and spreads holiday cheer and magic for the local kids. For many years, he was even the Santa that did a neighboring town’s tree lighting and our town’s Christmas parade.

It wasn’t until I was about 10 years old that I realized my dad’s secret. Strangely enough, this wasn’t even when I stopped believing in Santa Claus. I just believed that my dad was one of his helpers that went around visiting kids and reporting back what they wanted. A short while after I found out, my sister did too and the two of us became his new elf helpers.

We’d go on his gigs with him and pass out candy canes or gift bags or control the line. It might not sound like a hard job, but never underestimate the enthusiasm of an 8-year-old next in line to see Santa Claus. There are few things that can stop a kid in that predicament.

It wasn’t until I was about 12 that I realized that my dad was the only Santa that had ever visited our house. Looking back, I had the biggest evidence that he wasn’t real staring me right in the face, but I guess I just never really stopped to consider that idea.

I still elfed for him all the way up until my senior year of high school and it was always a really cool Christmas tradition. It was something that very few other people in the world can say that they do. Although I realized that the magical Santa that flies around to every kid’s house at night wasn’t real, in my household, Santa will always be real and Christmas will always be magical.