I never thought he was real. My family isn’t exactly the warm and fuzzy, holiday traditions type, so for as long as I can remember my parents always just elected some poor member of our housing staff to take my sister and me to buy our own Christmas presents. Vada tried one year to get me into the spirit and nearly had me convinced this ballerina Barbie doll that I’d wanted was actually from Santa and not her, but when I asked her how Santa knew I’d wanted it, she couldn’t come up with an answer quick enough and that was pretty much the end of it. It’s still nice that she tried so hard to make the holiday special for me, though.