Sailor Photobombs Younger Sisters After Santa Letter Request

A pair of sisters were given an emotional reunion surprise when their military brother photobombed them and answered one's letter to Santa for him to come home for the holidays. Siblings Olivia, 9, and Spencer Gillam, 7, are extremely close to their brother Justin Hodgins, 29, a first class seaman with the Canadian Navy. Though from Toronto, Ontario, Justin was based in Victoria, British Columbia, on the other side of the country, on Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt. This distance, combined with travel restrictions of the coronavirus pandemic, meant that Justin had not seen his younger siblings for roughly two and a half years. To save his siblings the disappointment of not seeing their brother again, Olivia and Spencer's parents told them that their brother would not be coming home for the holidays this year, either. But when Justin got the news that such a trip would then be possible, he started working on a surprise with the help of his fellow family members. The night before the surprise, Olivia had finished writing her letter to Santa for the year, in which she said she wished for her brother to be home for Christmas. Having collected Justin from the airport, his parents then hid him outside while inside, the girls' mom, Jill, encouraged the siblings and their older sister Kaylin, who was in on the surprise, to pose for a photo. As the siblings stood together for the snap, Justin quietly snuck behind the family's kitchen counter and into the background, making sure he had successfully photobombed the image. Then, when Olivia and Spencer were shown Jill's photo, the moment clicked, with the siblings bursting with excitement and darting to share a tearful embrace with their brother.