The best Christmas Present of all...
The Christmas of 2024 was a time for family, the majority choosing to spend the day with those that were closest to them. There were of course exceptions to that rule; Thad was at Dalton, his brother on duty at the hospital, and his sister-in-law taking the day shift at the Spotlight Diner, which allowed Elliott to have the day off to spend with his husband and their two sons. In some ways though he realised, the Carmichaels, who were hosting him and the five Dalton students that for one reason or another could not go home for the holiday, were his family though. The couple were surrogate parents in many ways to half of the boys that had passed through the doors of the Academy in their time there…
Adam was also not with his family, given that they were thousands of miles away; he was instead enjoying an almost stereotypical British Christmas with many of the other expat actors that called the city home. When he was first invited, he had not been entirely sure who was hosting the party, but it came as no surprise when he discovered that it was Daniel Radcliffe, a long term resident of the city. Many of the main cast of the new Harry Potter film were also present, not wishing to fly across the Atlantic for a few days. Adam had arrived in the company of Russell Tovey, thanks to an intervention by Sebastian, and as a result he did not immediately go into a state of starstruck awe. Russell was kind enough to make the introductions to those that he had not met, but they all seemed to know who he was already, thanks to his part in the big hit show of the fall.
The day started early, at 9.30am, but the party was already in full swing, with the cheesy seventies pop songs being played in stereo, and a table full of the kind of nibbles and snacks that were virtually non-existent on their side of the Atlantic normally. At 10am, the assembled guests fell silent, and they all watched as the Queen made her annual Christmas broadcast. At the age of 98 she still managed to command the attention of everyone in the room, perhaps even more so now. The words that she spoke were fitting, relevant to the events of the day and of the year. Adam listened in the knowledge that back in the West Village, Niff would also be tuned in, as Nick prepared their own festive feast, with the assistance of his mother and grandmother. That task would carry on for him after she finished speaking, but his husband and son would go back to playing with their new toys…
At the Hummel-Warbler house in Murray Hill, things were not quite so hectic. The twins had opened their gifts as Cooper and Grace did the same; then Pam had arrived, with more gifts for her grandchildren. She would be joining them later when they headed to the West Village, as would Nils of course, as much part of the family now as those born or married into it…
The little basement apartment below their home was empty though, as Roderick had volunteered to work. He had suspected that Mason and Jane would invite him to come and join in their festivities, but he did not wish to intrude on their first Christmas as parents, so taking the shift had been the most perfect of excuses to avoid feeling obliged to accept the invite when it came. Secretly, Jane had been glad when Mason, who extended the offer, told her that Roderick would not be coming. She was already having to cope with having two sets of parents arriving on the day. Madison would not be joining them this year, however. She had hinted to her brother that she had someone special in her life, and she would be spending the day with them, but she refused to say any more than that to him…
Of the other new parents in their little circle, two sets also had the spectre of family visiting to contend with, although in the case of Skylar and Julia, they were not the ones hosting, but were travelling with little Seth to Julia's parents home, being joined their by Skylar's parents. It would mean a lot less work for the new mother, and she was grateful for that. The opposite was true in the Hudson Valley, were two sets of parents had descended on town; two competitive new grandmothers had offered to prepare Christmas lunch, given that Colin would still have his pharmacy duties to attend to, even if it was only for a few urgent cases. That allowed him to escape downstairs, earning him a glare from his husband, who as the sound of the voices in the kitchen grew louder and more agitated, wished that someone would call up in desperate pain so that he could flee to his surgery…
As for the parents of the third child that had come into the world that year, they had no stress whatsoever. The Bernsteins were spending the day at home in Baltimore, and of course, Mrs Wilson still saw the celebration of Christmas as being out of kilter with her strong Jewish faith. That meant she was still safely in Manhattan, Kansas, and left Flint and Izzy to enjoy a relaxing day. They were alone with their children this year, as they had given Maribel, their au pair, an early Christmas gift in the form of a return ticket to France, which allowed her to spend Christmas with her family this year for the first time since she had started working for them.
As she had been flying towards Europe, another person had been making their way in the opposite direction. Rory had decided to ask his grandmother to join them for the holiday on a whim with Trent's backing. Neither of them had imagined that she would agree, as she liked to act as a Queen Bee at the church in Clane at this time of year, being an ever present figure at all the events and services that marked the highlight of the Christian year. She had said yes, however, and both Rory and his husband were delighted that she would be coming. With her visit confirmed, they were made happier still when Séamus and Becca had asked them to come and join them for Christmas lunch in Delaware. Rory had made the effort to join his grandmother for midnight mass at the Cathedral of St Matthew the Apostle the night before, and so it fell to Trent to drive them up to their home. Agnes was as lively as ever, and her conversation kept Trent both occupied and amused as they headed north. He predicted that the meal would be a lively affair…
As Christmas in Baltimore proved to be exactly as Trent had imagined, it proved to be a little more stressful than the Willetts had predicted. They had not pictured a scenario where two sets of grandparents, both eager to make their first grandchild's first Christmas a memorable one, would create a moment of conflict. They had not realised that there would be clashes over the way that certain things were done, minor annoyances normally, but amplified by the circumstances. The thinly veiled sniping between the two grandmothers was obvious at once to the young couple, and it was not the way they had hoped Christmas would go…
Then things took a disastrous turn when the exact same gift was presented to little Seth by both sets of grandparents. Julia's parents had suggested to her that they would purchase the item, but by that time, Skylar already knew that his parents had bought the gift in question. Julia had immediately passed that information on to her parents with the hope that the words would sink in as they were mature adults; she had gone on to suggest an alternative that was every bit as good. It appeared however that they were not quite as mature as their daughter had thought, and also explained why her mother had been so desperate to hand their present over first. To be as calm as Skylar's parents were at that point showed great maturity, given that he had told them that the other couple had wished to buy the item, but had been told that it was already bought. Skylar was left stunned, but the expression on his wife's face suggested that she was ready to explode…
At that moment, little Seth began to cry, and that postponed the outburst. It was no shock to Skylar though when Julia said that she was ready to go home, and he had to agree with her. His parents were ready to leave as they did, but it was the way that Julia's mother was regarding all of them as spoiling things by leaving that made the former Warbler's blood boil…
It was only once they were back at home, and Seth was settled in his crib that Julia finally gave vent to her feelings. "I just cannot believe that they would be so childish as to do something like that! I know that they were disappointed when I told them that the gift in question had already been purchased, but to then buy it anyway, and present it first in a show of blatant one-upmanship! Well, it can stay at there house for Seth to play with when we go and visit! It will be the one that your parents bought that we accept and have here."
"I am sure that my mom and dad wouldn't want to cause a rift between you and your parents, and would be more than happy to get an exchange on their gift," said Skylar quietly.
"I know they would be, but why the devil should they?" Julia replied, and then let out a loud sigh. "Why is it that nobody warns you about the possible range of in-law related problems when you say that you are getting married? I mean, they tell you all about the best ways to avoid petty arguments as newlyweds, how to cope with the birth of your first child, and all the rest. Why isn't there somebody that will turn round to you and say that you would be best off marrying an orphan, because it is only by that trick that you will avoid having in-laws!"
Skylar smiled, although he knew that he should be slightly offended, as his parents were Julia's in-laws. "They don't say it because there aren't enough orphans to make that feasible. Plus, you would need to check that they really are an orphan, and not just estranged from the people that brought them into the world. I mean, if you had fallen for Seth instead of me, you would never have expected those two people to make an appearance on the scene…"
Julia laughed at that, and then in an apologetic tone said, "Of course, I lucked out immensely on the in-law stakes; you on the other hand…"
"Your folks are perfectly alright most of the time; they are just competitive when it comes to their first grandchild, and in all honestly, I can't fault them for that. He is pretty much perfection in human form after all…"
Julia smiled, and replied, "We did do a pretty good job there between us, and of course, he could not have wished for a better name."
They would have a light supper that evening, and then Julia went to make a call to her parents, calmer now that she had been earlier, and much less likely to make things ten times worse with a catty remark. Skylar hoped that her parents would have reflected on their actions, and would understand why she had been so upset. As she made the call, he headed for the nursery, and was not the least bit surprised to see his best friend leaning over the crib, with a smile on his face, as he walked through the door.
"He looks so peaceful and content," said Seth simply. "Not everyone is as fortunate; I have had a busy day… I made two collections earlier, both of lonely people that had nobody that would invite them to join them for the holiday. I can understand how that must feel, having lived alone, but I was always lucky enough to have someone invite me to join them…"
"You would always have found a seat at our table," said Skylar quietly. "That might have been enough to save us having to go to my in-laws. I mean, after what went down at Julia's folks today, I am dreading what might happen at my parents next year if we go there!"
Seth chuckled, then said, "I think that the way forward is for you and Julia to decide what two significant gifts that you want next year for my little namesake, allocate them to a set of parents, and then talk about nothing else than the gift in question in their company for the remainder of the year. Hopefully it will sink in that way. Of course, if you hint that your parents are buying it to Julia's, then there is even more chance that they will go there…"
"Actually, I don't think that would work again next year…" came his reply.
Seth's mouth dropped open then, and across from him, Skylar's eyes widened, before they both turned their heads towards the door. There stood Julia, who was just realising that she had just seen, heard and responded to, a dead person…
Nobody spoke. There was a little voice in Skylar's head telling him that maybe if they didn't speak, his wife might imagine that she was dreaming it all, and walk back out of the room. That voice was followed by another one, however, that told him to stop being so ridiculous; there was no way she would believe that, and anyway, Julia being able to see Seth was something that he had wished for forever, and now that it had finally happened, he should be celebrating and taking full advantage of it…
"I must be dreaming," said Julia suddenly. "I must be, because there is only one Seth in my life, in this room that is alive, and that is the one that is sound asleep in his crib. So this all has to be a dream, and a very good and vivid one at that. It all feels as if it was real, that I am wide awake, and well, that is impossible, because the other Seth is standing there, right in front of me. Although, looking closely at him, he does seem to be about a decade younger than he was when I last saw him alive.."
Skylar remained silent, unsure what he should do for the best, but then…
"Actually, Julia, you are wide awake, and this is real. Sometimes this never happens, or you would just have heard my voice at first. However, thanks to all the problems you have had today, all the emotional triggers were right, and if I am guessing correctly, you started to wish that I was still around, if for no other reason than to have someone to complain to about everything that wasn't your husband. I am still dead, but well, I do have these now…"
Skylar was left to just stand and stare as his best friend unfurled his wings, and he heard his wife let out a gasp. "You're an angel! Well, of course you would be; that makes perfect sense, but why am I suddenly able to see you, and how long has my husband been able to see you?"
"You are seeing me because you wanted to, deep inside. You knew that I was an angel already, and that belief is a good starting point. As I said, all of the drama today just made you wish you could see me again.."
"And as for how long I have been able to see him, I have been seeing him since before his funeral," added Skylar quietly. "But I have been able to see angels for about a decade. It all started before Nick and Jeff got married…" Skylar then proceeded to stand there and tell his wife all that he knew. How it had all started with Kurt and Blaine. How all of the group of Warblers that she knew could see angels. How he saw Wes on a regular basis too. He decided not to tell her that he and Thad were actually married, and he had been present at the service, as that was a step too far for that day.
For her part, his wife listened intently, and by the time he stopped, she was smiling widely. "Well, now a lot of things kind of make more sense. I often wondered why all of you had a strong belief in angels, and in an afterlife, and repeated those feelings with conviction in an increasingly secular world. I never quite understood why, as Dalton isn't a particularly religious school, but now it is clear why; you know it all to be true; you know it exists, because you have seen the evidence with your own eyes. I still don't get why Seth looks so much younger though."
"We all revert to the age that we were when Hunter killed his first victim. Carole's son Finn. He is a great guy, much respected in angelic circles," replied Seth. "What with him, Kurt, Blaine and Wes, plus Kurt's mom Elizabeth, we are like a proper little family these days…"
"So will I be able to see them all as well now? Will I finally meet the legendary Wes Montgomery?" asked Julia.
"It is certainly a possibility. Now that your mind is open to the concept, you will start to see us all. In fact, you will probably start seeing angels everywhere, and you'll be surprised just how many there are…"
"I think that for now, you and the guys will be more than enough, Seth," interjected Skylar, as he had begun to detect that his wife was feeling a certain unease. "Why don't the two of you go and have a seat in the living room, and I will make us some tea, and we can have a chat? I mean, unless you have somewhere that you need to be Seth?"
"I can make time for this, trust me," replied his friend, and he headed towards the door.
Skylar made the tea, and brought it through into the lounge, where he found Seth sitting in his old chair. He sat next to his wife, and without thinking, poured out the three cups of tea. He handed the cup to Seth, and it was only as his friend took his first sip that he realised that his wife was staring at what she was seeing in front of her.
"You are wondering how on earth I can be physically here, drinking tea, aren't you, Julia? To be honest, I don't quite understand it myself, but the fact is that the three original angels, Finn, Kurt and Blaine, plus those from our generation that have joined them since, are corporeal, at least to those of our little circle…" said Seth.
Skylar continued, "However, if our parents were to walk in here right now, all they would see would be a tea cup, floating in midair, with liquid in it. They would see that the liquid level was going down as the cup tipped, but it wouldn't be spilling out. In short, they'd freak…"
"You were with Skylar, in the kitchen, the day I gave birth!" exclaimed Julia, as she had a realisation about something she had seen that day. "I came to find him, looked in and saw dishes floating in mid air. I thought that I was hallucinating, that I was imagining it, but it actually happened, didn't it?"
"Guilty as charged!" said Seth with a smile. "However, it was definitely not supposed to have happened, and I got quite a stern talking to about it later on, about how I needed to be more careful."
"I have to ask; were you at the birth too?"
"Yes, in the far corner of the room, in case Skylar needed me."
"I actually felt that you were watching over me that day," said Julia in a whisper. "Since then, I have always felt that our son, your namesake, had you as a guardian angel, watching over him. My parents allowed me to say that, and smiled at the notion, but they didn't believe it, I could tell. However, now I know that it is true. He really does have an angel watching over him."
"A whole team of angels, actually, that keep an eye on him, on all of you…" said Seth. Julia nodded, and felt a growing warmth in her soul. There was something comfortable and joyous in knowing that you were being protected by angels…
When Julia woke up the following morning, she was still revelling in what she had discovered the previous evening. Her husband was still asleep beside her, but she had the feeling that he had been up during the night, attending to the needs of their son; his robe was lying on the floor by the bed, no longer neatly hung up as it had been when they went to sleep the previous night. She climbed out of bed with care, not wishing to disturb him, and after hanging his robe up, she headed along the corridor to check on their boy. Walking in, she found a figure standing at the crib, looking down lovingly at her son, but it was not Seth… She panicked then, just for a moment, until they sensed her and turned around. She had never met him before, as he had passed before she had met her husband, but she recognised him from the old photographs, and of course, from the now world famous portrait of an angel making judgement…
"So, it isn't just Seth that you can see; we did wonder, because that can be the case sometimes. It is a pleasure to finally meet you face to face, Julia," said Wes kindly.
"Likewise, Wes, although to be honest, this is going to take some getting used to. You really do not expect to walk into your son's nursery first thing in the morning and see someone staring into the crib," she replied.
"My sincerest apologies if I startled you," the angel replied. "However, we can often be found doing this. We have found that all of the children that have been born to Warblers in our little circle so far are conscious of our presence, even if, like Evie, they will not actually admit to it. My namesake and I will sometimes sit and have long chats in his bedroom in the West Village if he wakes up during the night and cannot get back to sleep; it saves him going to wake up his dads. The same is true of young Aaron Wilson, although he is particularly fond of Blaine…"
"So you are saying that my son can see you as well? How do you know that already?"
"His eyes will follow us around, in particular his Uncle Seth. I'm afraid that as the kids get older, things do get more complicated. You will need to have a chat with him about the need to keep the fact he can see angels secret. I do however believe that the majority of kids that have an imaginary friend might actually be seeing an angel instead."
"It would explain why some of those friends have strange or old-fashioned names, I suppose. There was a girl in my class at elementary school that had a friend called Gertie…"
"And I would wager that if you went and checked, she might well have had a great-grandmother called Gertrude, that had passed away. She would have been known to her closest friends as Gertie…"
"That would make sense," admitted Julia, who stepped over to join Wes at the side of Seth's crib. She smiled at him, and then with a sniff at the air she realised…
"In case you were wondering, we don't deal with those," said Wes firmly. "Attending to the changing of children's nappies remain firmly the remit of those that have not yet shed their mortal coil…" Julia smiled, and then felt a draught - and saw that with that, Wes had gone…
The news that Julia was now part of the little club of those that could see angels stayed quiet for a few days. Skylar did not want to overwhelm his wife, and before he told the world, he had a quiet word with Mrs Carmichael about it. She came over and had a quiet chat with her about the subject, and how she was coping with it. Assured by them both that all was fine, Skylar decided to invite Thad over for dinner, and asked Wes to join them. He said nothing beforehand, so the look on the current Head Warbler's face when Julia greeted his husband was absolutely priceless. They still did not mention the fact that they were actually married, as it was still too soon for that to come out.
Only then, and with his wife's blessing, did Skylar announce the news to the rest of the inner circle of friends, carefully advising her on who with a close connection to them was still unable to see. Julia was not in the least surprised that the two doctors connected to the group by marriage were amongst those that could not see the angels; she had always found that those in that profession had much less faith in the spiritual side of things, there minds being dominated by the world of science. She did however hope that it would happen for them one day, especially for Ollie Harwood. It was quite clear to her that his brother and Wes were head over heels in love…
Those final days of 2024 were restful for some, those able to take a holiday for a few days from the hectic world of work to enjoy the festivities. Even they did not have the same length of break as those in England; Nick had been horrified to discover that some office workers in London had two or even three weeks off over Christmas and New Year during his time there. As for himself, he was back in the office on the 26th, and was only going to be off on the 1st of January because he had an outstanding day's holiday to take.
Those that worked in the world of show did not even have that luxury; indeed, some performers would even have been in the theater on Christmas Day itself. Adam regaled the others in the cast of Mary Poppins with the fact that in the West End, all theatres were closed on the 25th, and many did not even perform on the night of the 24th, a fact that Mason could attest to from his own experience performing there.
"I always felt really sorry for the Rockettes," admitted Marley. "We worked in the same building, and whilst we were planning our holiday parties, they had two shows a day for most of the month, including Christmas Day itself. It was absolutely non-stop for them!"
Only those in academia were guaranteed any sort of lengthy break, and that did create a little tension between Matthew, on call for any emergencies that might arise on the MTA on Christmas Day, and his cousin Hilary, who was not heading into NYU at all for a period of two weeks. Of course, Brittany was also at home for the same length of time, but that then segued into her maternity leave. She was not too pleased if she was honest at being stuck in the house all day, and she hoped that her child would arrive on time, so that she could get back to what she loved.
In the end, however, her child decided that they couldn't wait until her due date…