December 23 – “Mystery guests”

We apparently had some more of those strange, elusive visitors in the house yesterday.  The kind that you know must be there, but you never actually see them.  The kind that make life, well … interesting.

I was hard at work at my desk preparing for two teachings and two weddings.  The Christmas Eve service loomed over my preparation time, as did my usual preparation for next Sunday’s teaching.  I have a destination wedding on Saturday over at the San Luis Hotel.  Simple affair.  A couple of old timers … my age.  They do want to meet me ahead of time, though, so I’m going over there for a few minutes on Friday to touch base.  Then I just added a second wedding for Monday morning.  Also simple.  This one will be a young man whose grandfather was one of my first real friends and supporters at Seaside.  Cailyn was over here as well.  She is out of school for a few weeks, but not so for Mom.  For some reason they are keeping the operating room staffed and busy for the next few days.  Glad to hear that, actually.  Just in case, you know.  Her Daddy was off duty, but he had some business to take care of.  Seems he had negotiated with Santa Claus for the temporary assistance of a few of his elves to help set up an extra special surprise present for Cailyn.  Can’t say any more about that, other than I wish I could have seen the elves.  I understand they were some of the biggest, strangest looking creatures in Santa’s entire brigade.

So … moving on to the mysterious visitors.  From my location, safely perched at my desk and trying desperately to focus on the task at hand, I began to hear the voices, eerily similar, yet … could I be really sure?  I recognized Cailyn and on occasion Chris.  There was the new stuffed reindeer friend named Elsa.  Elsa Sevela Vaughan, as I was summarily informed when I suggested she add Fred as a middle name.  So those were solid.  I could continue working with that in the background.  It was the others that began to give me creeps. 

Suddenly there was a Carleese (or however you would spell it).  Never heard that one before.  After a few minutes of pondering I decided that must be an imaginary friend … of the reindeer.  Strange, right?  Now I’m all for imaginary friends.  I have housed several over the years, the most significant, of course being “Boy,” who played often with Kel, disappeared for four or five years, and then miraculously showed back up, none the worse for wear, to spend time with Josh.  And we had never mentioned his prior appearances to Josh, either.  Gotta wonder …  So now there were four.  But then came the distinct call for Abby to “pay attention.”  Wait.  Abby is the name of Cailyn’s boxer, and I knew she wasn’t part of the babysitting deal.  We had another imaginary friend.  Didn’t sound like Abby was playing well with her fellow students, either.  See, another character rose up, calling herself “Teacher.”  And Teacher didn’t take any misbehavior lightly.  I guess it got so bad that Teacher had to call home, because even though the voice I heard sounded like Chris, the obvious personage was someone called “Mom.”  And that’s where it got really confusing.  The narrator (who sounded a lot like Cailyn) for some reason stopped all the action every so often to explain what was going on, and who was who.  That was quite helpful.  Except that sometimes she identified herself as Cailyn.  Sometimes she was Mom.  Sometimes she was Teacher.  And somewhere in there was an elusive “Sarah.”  Guess she must have been the quiet one of the class, because she never said much. 

Now that you have all the players straight (OK.  I don’t have them straight, either, but work with me here), there was an elaborate scenario that was being created.  Sadly I couldn’t hear all of it.  Something about a reindeer school and a trial run flight and helping Santa deliver toys.  Beyond that I missed the details.  But … I think I feel a story coming on.  Let me get back to you on that one.  It might take me a while, but I’ll try to post it when I’m done. 

Merry Christmas, Cailyn and Chris and Abby and Sarah and Elsa and Carleese and Teacher and Mom and Fred … oh, wait.  Fred didn’t make the cut, did he?  Oh, well.  Merry Christmas anyway, Fred.

Luke 2:15 -16 says, “When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, ‘Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord told us about.’

          So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseoh, and the baby, who was lying in the manger”

Father, thank you for imaginary friends and real ones, and for Nannies who don’t mind playing along.  Amen.