December 25th, 2000 Christmas Day

Justin blinked his eyes rapidly trying to make the white flash of light disappear, when he got his eyes to adjust, he wasn’t in the car anymore, in fact, he didn’t know where he was at first, but then he realized that he was on a bed, in a room, why did everything look so familiar? He looked around the room, his clothes, his bag, the clock on the wall read 6:45am. Frowning, he looked out the window, there was snow on the ground, after coming to his senses, he realized that he was at Joey’s rental house, in his guest room.

“How did I get back here, weren’t we just in the car a minute ago?” Justin thought, and he immediately thought of the guys, careful not to wake anyone up, he opened the door and headed down the carpeted hallway, all was quiet in the house, he decided to check out JC’s room first, since it was next door to his, he didn’t bother to knock, and he walked right in, he glanced over at JC’s bed, there he was, sleeping soundly, did he even knew what was going on? He needed to find out.

“JC.” He whispered.

JC didn’t stir, but he could hear him silently snoring, Justin realized there was no way in waking JC up at this moment, so he decided to let him sleep a little longer. After stepping out the room, he jumped up when Chris appeared behind him.

“Damn it Chris you scared me!” Justin said in hushed tone.

“Sorry.” He whispered back.

“What are you doing up?” Justin asked.

“It’s Christmas dummy.” Chris chuckled.

Justin was quiet for a moment then he said, “Yeah, but weren’t we you know, last night at that cabin?”

Chris nodded, “Yeah, that was another reason why I’m up, I’m just as confused as you.”

“So what does that mean, how did we get here?” Justin wondered.

“I-I don’t know, magic I guess?” Chris responded back.

Justin thought for a moment and told Chris that he was gonna excuse himself to go the bathroom, Chris was gonna go back to his room and gather his things, Joey and Lance also came out from their rooms, also with confused looks on their faces.

“We need to tell JC about this.” Chris muttered and headed to JC’s room.

“Hey sleeping beauty, wake up!” He shouted at the top of his lungs.

“CHRIS!” Joey whispered loudly, “Not so loud, it’s still early you know.”

Chris smirked and tried to wake JC up, the look that JC had on his face said it all.

“Chris, you better have a good reason to wake me up so damn early.” JC said through gritted teeth.

“We’re home JC.” He replied simply.

JC looked at him, then to the other guys that were in the room with him.

“Home, as in home, home?” He asked.

“Well, technically my guess is that we are in Joey’s rental house in upstate New York.” Chris continued.

“But if we are here, wait a second how did we get here, I drove last night, did I?” JC asked.

“The first minute we were in the car, the next minute we were here.” Justin told him.

“And its Christmas.” Chris said, looking out the window staring at the snowy sidewalk.

At that moment, Chris’s mom entered the room, “Merry Christmas boys! You are up early, come down to the kitchen and get some cocoa.”

“Mom?” Chris looked at her, to him, he hadn’t seen her in a few days, to her, it felt different.

Chris ran up to his mom and gave her a big hug, “Mom! I’m so happy to see you! Merry Christmas, I missed you so much!”

“Chris, what are you talking about, I saw you yesterday.” She asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, that you were all at a Christmas Eve party yesterday with some friends, and you came home super late last night.” Beverly explained.

“Mom, I wasn’t here yesterday, me and JC weren’t here, I went to the mall, and me and JC got lost and our car broke down, and we stayed at a cabin near the woods, and we couldn’t call home, and you were worried about us, and they were elves and Santa Claus and everything.” Chris rambled.

Beverly just looked at her son and to the rest of the guys. “Chris honey, you had a nightmare.”

“It was not a nightmare mom! We were missing, the police were searching for us, that’s what Justin, Lance, and Joey said, they came after us, then they were missing, and we were all in this magical place mom, you’ve got to believe us, we saw Santa and-and-

Beverly put a hand on Chris’s shoulder, “Honey, you were here yesterday, all of you were, and Lynn, Lance’s parents, JC’s parents, and Joey’s parents as well, okay? You just had a nightmare, I know you’ve always an overactive imagination, which is why you tend to have vivid dreams, now come downstairs and get some breakfast, then you can open your presents.” She gave him a tight hug and kissed him on the forehead.

After she left the room Chris whispered to the guys, “You guys remember don’t you, I am not going crazy?”

They all nodded.

 “We remember Chris, we remember everything that happened.” Lance said.

“Maybe we should just keep this to ourselves, maybe the elves did something.” Joey added.

“Yeah maybe.” Chris sighed. “But why?”

“Who knows, maybe they didn’t do this for the bad intentions, maybe they were doing this protect themselves or something.” Joey continued.

They all agreed that they were gonna keep this to themselves…

Meanwhile in the living room

Chris hugged his sisters for the millionth time, “Chris, you’re smothering me.” His youngest sister Molly said.

He let her go and they all continued to open presents and drinking their cocoa, this felt nice, everyone was happy, everything felt normal.

“Hey, there are more presents underneath here.” Karen, JC’s mom said.

Sure enough, they were five boxes underneath the tree, wrapped and covered with a bright red ribbon, the five boxes looked strangely familiar.

“These are for you guys.” Karen said, handing the five boxes to them, “It doesn’t say who its from though.”

Chris took his box and he looked at the other guys and he knew that they were wondering the same thing.

“We should open ours at the same time.” Joey added.

They all opened there’s and inside the boxes were red pajamas, which were the same pajamas that Chris and JC had when they were sleeping over at the cabin, and they all had their names on them.

“Wow, these are nice.” Justin added.

There were more things inside the box, five snow globes, JC remembered the snowglobe, it was the same snow globe he was looking at that was hanging on the tree back at that cabin. He looked at the snow globes, they all said “Believe.” But they each had a different Christmas character, a snowman, an elf, a santa, a Christmas tree, and a reindeer. JC also found something that was not inside the rest of the boxes, a letter; it was written in a very nice handwriting.

“Guys, look.” He whispered. They all huddled around him and started to read the letter silently:

“Dear *NSYNC, I hope you guys are not still confused, what you guys remember are true, it did happen, but what we did, needed to be done, in case you are wondering what is happening, and how you got there, let me explain. The car that you were on last night, has been slightly upgraded, just for that particular night, when you turned it on, the car went into a time warp, replacing the reality you knew, into an alternate reality, that is why your parents think that you were there with them all along, you were never reported missing, we decided to do this because if we left the reality the way it was, the authorities would never ever believe you, they would probably think you made all of this up, we didn’t want you to go into all that trouble, I hope you aren’t mad at us, but we figured it was for the best, nothing else changed, you are still the best pop act in the world right now, so you don’t have to worry about anything, and in case you would like to know where your car is, it is parked outside, along with the truck that Justin, Lance, and Joey left at the parking lot. I hope you like the presents we gave you, and another thing, if one day you pass by the woods again, the cabin, will not be there, you see? That cabin, is a magical cabin, it only appears for the Christmas season, then when Christmas is over, it disappears, so you guys were lucky that you actually experienced this whole magical place, and we were honored to have shared this with you, continue believing in the spirit of Christmas and you will get many great things in the future, we wish you all of the best of luck; Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

                               Your friends Sparkle, Elvin, Pepper, Toby, the elves, Mr. and Mrs. Claus.

                                                     P.S Thank you so much for singing to us, it means a lot.

By the time the members of *NSYNC finished reading the letter, they had tears in their eyes.

“What a beautiful letter this is.” Joey whispered, wiping a tear from his face.

“Yeah.” Chris said with a smile.

The parents saw that the guys were still huddled together, Lynn went up to them and asked them who the gift boxes were from?”

Justin quickly thought of something and told her that it was from a fan they met at a Christmas charity event in Florida, and the presents were really meaningful. Lynn understood and looked at the nice pajamas and the snow globes.

“These are really nice.” Lynn said, “you should put them on the mantle.”

Lynn took the snow globes and placed them on top the mantle along with some photos that were also there.

“And as for the pajamas, you should wear them, they look pretty festive.” Lynn continued.

The guys agreed and they headed back upstairs to their rooms to change, when JC entered his room, he placed the letter inside his notebook, that was in the dresser, he decided to keep it there for safe keeping. After the guys changed into their new pajamas, they all headed back downstairs.

They all complimented one another how nice they looked, especially the parents, after everyone finished opening their presents, the whole family just sat there conversing and enjoying the Christmas morning with one another. Chris, JC, Justin, Lance and Joey were forever grateful, even if this was an alternate reality, they were still loved by their parents, nothing else changed between them, of course, and they would never forget the magical Christmas experience they all had encountered, it had been a scary ride at first, but everything turned out good in the end. After all, grownups are grownups, and kids are kids, but even grownups should listen to their inner child every so often, they might learn something.