Are They Real?

(https://disneyland.disney.go.com/entertainment/disneyland/fantasy-faire/)

A few weeks ago, my eight-year-old daughter was at a drama camp where the kids acted out the movie Frozen. At the end of the week, the "real" Elsa came! My daughter kept asking me if she was really real. What could I say? I kept asking her what she thought. When "Elsa" showed up, I could tell that my daughter was really looking closely and trying to reconcile the differences she saw between the movie character and this real life princess. She concluded that this was, indeed, the real Elsa who lives in Disneyland, with all the other real princesses. They don't look like their cartoon-selves, for some reason she can't quite articulate, but they are really real.

I'm not sure what to say to all this. I know kids need a little magic now and then, but where do I draw the line? So far, I've tried to hedge: "Yes, there are people in Disneyland who get to be princesses while they're there...for a little while...at least, they get to look like princesses..."

My daughter insists they're real. They live there. And now she is determined for us to move to Florida to be close to the princesses.

I admit I'm very inconsistent about on the princess issue. One day I'm belting out "Let It Go" in the car, one day I'm refusing to buy Princess band-aids because "they're not dressed appropriately". And my daughter has, unfortunately, gotten more and more obsessed with them.

The Princess Question continues to confound me. I wonder how popular the Disney Princesses are in the Philippines? As we prepare to move there, I find myself wanting to stock up on Princess movies to ease the transition for my daughter. But my husband, like many fathers (I'm guessing), has had it.

My comfort is that my daughter has not asked to wear makeup, is not boy crazy, still won't let me wash or brush her hair without a fight, and wants to grow up to be not a princess, but "an ice-cream maker and seller". Which is its own issue...