Santa has arrived

This is not as much a tale about me as it is one of my dear friends.

The Love Of My Life (aka: LOML, wife or CeCe) is the activities director of our antique car club and she came up with the idea of us putting on a Christmas party for our local chapter of Special Kids Inc. My designated role was to be Mr. Claus. Yep...The Man Himself.
(Which I was good for. I actually had the role in my 5th grade Christmas play and almost won an Oscar for it...even tho my only line was "Ho-Ho-Ho". :-) )

But...there are times when things just don't go the way you planned. Last Monday I awoke to the dreaded, but seasonally expected, snotty-nose sniffles. By Wednesday- it had merged into a full-blown sinus attack and it was time to create "Plan B". Notice, I didn't say USE plan B- we didn't have one. This is where my friend comes in.

Ideaguy (aka: IG- more about that later) is a good man and over the past few months, has become a good partner in this adventure called life. He and his wife are walking the same sort of walk that we have been on. (no work- job searching-praying, asking, trusting and believing) Apparently, there is some truth to the adage that 'birds of a feather DO flock together'. Anyway, I asked him to stand in for me as The Man. I didn't know if he would, but I was pleasantly surprised when he agreed.

Well, I got the 'rig' to him and let him know when to be where and Saturday morning rolls around and at the appropriate time, up rolls The One and Only, Santa Claus. Granted, he showed up in a SUV, but hey, it IS 2007. Well, we proceeded to stash him in a back room until some of the kids and their families arrived and here he came- "Ho-Ho-Ho's" all around. The kids went wild! It was really great.

We put the kids on his knee and took individual pictures of them all and IG was really great with the children. You know, some of the kids were in such a condition that they were mostly unresponsive, but IG kept talking to them and helping them feel great if it were possible. It was really a sobering time. Even in the midst of what we see as problems, we are a fortunate and blessed people.

I was talking to IG's LOHL and she said that doing this is a first for him- waaay outside his comfort zone, but she was happy to see him do it. In my world there are no coincidences...God is bigger than all of them...perhaps I needed to be made ill so that IG could/would get 'drafted' to do this. If so, then just pass me another hanky. ;-)

Ideaguy has started his own blog: http://messageofhope.blogspot.com/ Put it in your favorites.