Meeting a biological parent as an adoptee can be nerve-racking, but one man’s attempt to lighten the situation is going viral for being both clever and sweetly awkward.

Fourty-three-year-old Doug Henning went all out to greet his father for the first time when he flew to visit Doug in Boston, Massachusetts, over Thanksgiving. In fact, he drew inspiration from a film in which another adult adoptee meets a father who initially never knew he existed—Elf.

In Elf, Buddy (played by Will Ferrell), goes to New York City to track down his father. He finds him at work, but his father mistakes him for a singing Christmas telegram, prompting an excited Buddy to make up a song on the spot explaining who exactly he is.

Doug also performed on this song “I’m here with my dad, and we never met, and I was adopted. But you never knew I was born, and now you found me, and you’re here, and I— guess what?” he sang in the outdoor pickup area at Logan Airport. “I love you, I love you, I love you!”