I remember once being at my grandmother’s house on Christmas Eve when I was a kid, and having Santa show up at the front door, only to think, Man, Santa really does not seem like himself at all tonight. He looks too skinny. And he smells like cigarettes and ham. Upon closer inspection I figured out that the reason Santa did not seem like himself was because it was not Santa at all. It was Uncle Jack in a cut-rate Santa outfit.

“Everyone, everyone, this is not Santa,” I announced. “If you will look closely, you’ll see that it’s Uncle Jack.” Some of the younger kids immediately started crying. The adults tried to convince me otherwise, saying, “Of course that’s Santa Claus! You must be blind!” And I responded by saying very calmly that I would accept their assertion that this was indeed Santa Claus as fact on one condition: that “Santa” and Uncle Jack appear in the same room at the same time.

“Make that happen and I will never question your judgment again,” I explained.

Nobody really liked me much for awhile after that night.

In a few short months I would learn the truth about Santa Claus. It happened one unremarkable winter afternoon as my mother drove me to the doctor’s office. I’m sure she felt it was probably overdue at this point. But back then, during my final stages a Believer, I was sort of the kid equivalent of Geraldo Rivera when it came to exposing fraudulent Santas.

I could spot a fake Santa from a hundred yards. The key was always the beard, and the way it was attached to “Santa’s” head. The more expensive beards would look like, well, beards, but they wouldn’t ever really sit right; they would always be the slightest bit askew somehow. The cheaper beards, which I’m sure were complete fire hazards, were pathetically easy to spot, because the elastic bands that held the beards in place could often be seen dangling right in the open, plain as day. I couldn’t believe so many of my schoolmates fell for these crappy theatrics.

For kids who are raised to believe in this stuff, in the myth of Santa, learning that it’s finally all a bunch of bulls*** must be the first true kick-in-the-balls reality check for them. My brother’s daughter, right now, is at the age where it’s still all magic. Sometimes I wonder if I would do the same thing to my child, and, you know, really pump up this Santa myth for him. You know how when you see a practical joke go on for too long, to the point where things take a turn towards the cruel? Your instinct is to put a stop to it. That’s how I feel sometimes about the way my niece commits herself to believing in Santa these days. Sure, it was cute for a bit, but now it has gone too far.

On Christmas Eve this year, my brother quietly slipped out of the house and headed into the woods where he had rigged up a light bulb that glowed red when switched on. He switched it on, then slipped back into the house, and waited for his daughter to notice the red bulb. Eventually, she did. And when she did, it’s not an understatement to say that she sh** herself blind when she saw this.

Rudolph, of course, was here.

I joined my niece at the window, the two of us cupping our hands around our eyes, our breath fogging the cold, black glass. Out there, in the treeline, was the red bulb, burning strong and bright. I’ll admit this: it was an incredibly effective bit of theater. Not only had my niece practically lost her mind at the sight of the bulb, but I too, very, very briefly, experienced a tangible glimpse of what it was like to really believe in something out-of-this-world crazy again.

You know what? It was far nicer than I’d remembered it being.

Note to self: I need to start believing in more crazy things going forward.

It’s time for level 4-6. (Or, in the game’s parlance, as I realized this morning, “stage” 4-6.) I’ll be honest: today’s level/stage gave me a bellyful of despair. It made me question why I ever thought embarking on this desk-bound quest was a good idea in the first place. Its solution, finally, is the worst thing that any videogame experience can be. It’s somewhat ambiguous. I eventually completed stage 4-6. But not unlike the first time I had sex or finished a sudoku puzzle, I’m not entirely confident that I, you know, did it right.

The level is broken up into two tiers. The lower tier is a bed of deadly sharpangles, with a small, moving platform that will ferry me across it. The upper tier is all vines and stationary platforms. In between the upper and lower tiers is a long, lonely bridge which, when touched, vanishes instantly between Mario’s feet. The locked door is in the top righthand side of the level. The key is located directly beneath the door, at the farside of the vanishing bridge.

Lining the lefthand wall of the level is a series of platforms and ladders, each one punctuated with one of those portable block power-ups. First, I cross the sharpangle moat to the left side, then scale the platforms and ladders, triggering three portable blocks along the way, and placing them at evenly spaced intervals along the vanishing bridge. Then, I hustle across the bridge, not touching the bridge but instead using the portable blocks, which of course only remain in place for the duration of the game’s portable-anything song. (Which I can hear it in my head as I type this.) Once I’ve reached the far side and “Portable Anything” has finished playing (meaning the blocks are gone now), I grab the key, then return back across the bridge, this time watching it vanish beneath my feet.

Back on the left side again, I begin my ascent by tossing the key up to the next platform, then using one of the portable blocks to join up with the key. This ascent is stressful, because as the portable blocks threaten to vanish under my feet, the key also blinks constantly each time it’s separated from me, threatening to return to its spot of origin on the farside of the now-gone/used vanishing bridge.

At the top of these platforms I find a pair of patrolling rhino-beetle enemies which travel in fast little circles around one of the small platforms that I need to cross. Also: a bat is cutting a slow, horizontal path at head level on those platforms. Somehow, someway, I need to 1. get the key up there, 2. avoid the bat, 3. avoid the rhino-beetles. Also: getting up there requires the use of a portable block. So, again, the block is constantly threatening to vanish under my feet, the key is, again, blinking whenever I’m separated from it for even a moment, and I’ve got three enemies bearing down on me.

On at least two occasions, during attempts to quickly toss the key upward, I instead chuck the key into the void below on accident. Let me tell you something: watching a giant key make its slow, winding descent into a sharpangle pit below is one of the saddest moments in all of gaming.

Also: the bat caught me once, and the rhino-beetle things ran me over at least four times. This, people, is how I wound up with that aforementioned bellyful of despair.

Of course, things did eventually go my way. On one, glorious occasion I timed my ascent perfectly. I hurled the key upward, and it landed exactly where I needed it to be. I waited for the bat to make his rounds, then picked up the key just before it blinked away from me. I made a few more precarious jumps across the level’s top-most tier. And when I finally reached the locked door–something I wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to do this morning–euphoria filled my heart and head. I was elated that this miniature nightmare was over. Finally, stage 4-6 was behind me.

The single, sort-of-great thing about nightmarish levels like this? The thrill you get when you realize that that you will never, for the rest of your life, have to do what you just did ever again.

Which is, as any gamer will attest to, kind of beautiful.