Who doesn’t remember the scene from the 2003 movie “Elf” in which Buddy enters his father’s office and meets him for the very first time!
Well, such things just don’t happen. I mean, who dresses up as an elf to meet their dad for the first time? Um, Doug Henning, maybe?
43-year-old Doug Henning of Boston, Massachusetts, had always known he was adopted. His adoptive parents were “amazing” people, but still, this didn’t stop him from searching for his biological parents.
“I already knew I was adopted my whole life,” Henning told reporters, “so I knew there was somebody out there that I belong to”.
Three years ago, Doug took the popular DNA test by ancestry.com, but he kind of forgot about it, until a long time later, he realized they had found a match for him.
“I ended up going to my junk mail,” Doug explained, “and realizing that I had a message from ancestry that ‘you have a match'”.
Indeed, there was a match with a long lost cousin who sent him a message saying that she thought she was his cousin and that her cousin was his sister.
This came as a surprise for Doug and, after some further research, he found out that this was indeed the case.
By searching more and more, Doug eventually tracked down his biological father, who had no idea he even had a son, just like the man in the movie ‘Elf’.
Due to the pandemic, the two men had not had the chance to meet face-to-face, so they limited their contact to online meetings.
So, when the strict measures allowed flying, Raul, Doug’s father, took a flight for Boston and visited his son for the first time.
At Logan Airport, a surprise awaited him.
Doug was dressed up as elf from the homonymous movie, he was holding a sign that read DAD, while he also sang the same awkward song Will Ferrell had sung in the movie.
Henning got the inspiration from the movie he had watched the night before meeting his father face-to-face for the first time, and he thought it would be a clever ice breaker.
Well, this didn’t go exactly as planned since Raul had never watched that movie. However, he still got emotional and gave his newly found son the warmest hug.
As Doug explained, this reunion was more emotional for his father because, unlike himself, he had no idea he had a son somewhere in the world.
Raul didn’t only find a son, but a whole new family behind him. Raul soon found out that he already had two granddaughters, making Doug his first child to have had a family of his own.
Father and son, along with Henning’s family, spent Thanksgiving together and they are planning on meeting up again soon. Doug’s daughters are excited, too, because their granddad lives in Florida!
Raul is already back home, but the memories will stick around for a long time. Or until they meet again.
Below, you can watch the video of Raul arriving at the airport and meeting the elf aka his son. The emotional moment of their reunion brought tears to our eyes. Don’t say we didn’t warn you!
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