GHOSTLY THANKSGIVING

When ghosts showed up at my house for Thanksgiving dinner, I didn’t mind. I invited them. I have haunted this house for many years, although at the present time it is vacant. People don’t tend to stay long once I begin my ghostly pranks.

Every year, all of the ghosts go separate ways to haunt some family’s Thanksgiving celebration. I thought this year, we should celebrate Thanksgiving by getting together at my house to swap stories of our most memorable or fun hauntings and talk about what we are going to haunt for Christmas, so we all met here to tell our tales.

As we gathered around the dining table, I started by telling my favorite story of haunting mischief. That was the year that I haunted “Jimmy the Sicilian” and his family at their Thanksgiving dinner. Jimmy and all the grownups were at the main dining table and the children were at a separate table.

His men were outside guarding the house and there was a couple of them in the basement where Jimmy had his home-based torture chamber. Jimmy never let his work interfere with family holidays, but, if he could combine a little celebrating with a little torture, then he was content. Today, he had a kidnapped jewelry store owner who he was grilling for the time and location of a large diamond shipment.

I started my haunting at the kids’ table. One of the kids bragged that he knew how to make a coin disappear so I helped the kid’s coin disappear and then continued with more “magic” tricks. The kids were laughing and enjoying themselves. Hoping to incite a riot, I threw a piece of white meat turkey at the kid at the head of the table hitting him square in the face, and he retaliated immediately. Pretty soon, even the screeching girls joined in the fight.

Next, I went to work on the family dog, who had parked himself underneath the main dining table hoping to catch a morsel of turkey. I would grab the turkey and move it again and again just out of his reach making him moan very loud. Jimmy told one of his men to take the dog out of the room, but the dog kept running around to avoid capture, knocking over furniture and barking loudly. The kids were screaming at each other, and humming food and running around. It was great fun!

Finally, his man caught the dog and dragged him to the kitchen, where he opened the basement door and threw the dog in and slammed the door. He forgot that the kidnapped jewelry store owner was down there tied to a chair.

Meanwhile, back at the main dining table, I decided to play around with Jimmy. I lifted his glass of wine and poured it on his head. Jimmy jumped up sputtering and turned to his brother Bobby, who was sitting on his right, and started to choke him screaming, “you will never pour another glass of wine on anyone again.”

About this time, the FBI arrived to question Jimmy. They had received an anonymous tip from a concerned citizen (me!). I rushed to the basement and poked the dog to make it bark. The goon tried to quiet the dog by saying soothing things to the dog. I lifted the dog up and walked around the room. It looked like the dog was floating in the air. He watched fascinated as the dog “landed” at the foot of the tied-up jewelry store owner. He looked at the store owner and said, “Did you do that?” The prisoner saw this development as an opportunity to maybe escape and said, “yes, I did. And I will do it to you if you don’t untie me.”

The goon says, “I can’t. Jimmy will kill me. I am going to tell him what you did and see what he says I should do.”

He ran upstairs yelling, “Boss, boss, the prisoner made the dog float in the air and says he is gonna do the same to me.” He sees the FBI and says, “Oops, sorry, Boss.”

Hearing the dog howl, the FBI checked the basement and freed the jewelry store owner. It was a very satisfying Thanksgiving haunting. Now, who wants to tell their favorite ghost story next?”

“Oh, oh, I will.” Joey the Jerk, jumped in to tell his story. He was a ghost we all barely tolerated because he bragged and complained a lot. He was miserable in life, and now, he is miserable in death and makes us all miserable. We all prayed he would pick someone to haunt who would convince him to go toward the light in the tunnel and away from us.

As I was about to turn the floor over to him to tell his story, the front door swung open letting in a stiff breeze and three living people.

We all turned to each other wondering what they were doing here. No one had lived here for years.

The woman turned to the kids and said, “Okay, children, we can shelter in here tonight to get out of the wind. Maybe they have a fireplace and we can start a fire to get warm.”

“Momma, I’m hungry.” one of the children said in a small voice.

“I know baby, let’s go check the kitchen, maybe there is something to eat in there.”

These people looked homeless and were hungry. We decided to go out and see what we could scrounge up from any nearby Thanksgiving celebrations to feed them.

We all flew into the kitchens of nearby houses and helped ourselves to some of the abundant Thanksgiving feasts. I took several slices of ham already cut and laid out on a platter. The other ghosts each found something to bring back for our guests to eat.

As the woman and her kids searched in the kitchen for something to eat, we laid our “gifts” on the dining room table.

Then, when the family came out of the kitchen where they had found nothing to eat, they saw the food on the table and their eyes lit up. The mother thought she was imaging the food. She touched it to see if it was real. She picked it up and put it into her mouth. From the expression on her face, it was delicious. The kids’ smiles widened as they noticed two stuffed animals sitting on the side chairs. Joey the Jerk had thought to bring back toys for the kids and a blanket. Maybe Joey wasn’t such a jerk after all. Another ghost brought in some firewood and we got the fire going for them.

We watched in silence as they ate, then the mother gathered the kids under the blanket with her on the floor and they fell asleep in front of the fire. We watched them sleep for a while then went upstairs to continue our celebration.

We would all look back on this as our favorite Thanksgiving celebration, when we were haunted by the living.

We gathered upstairs in one of the bedrooms and I said, “Now. Who wants to go next to tell a favorite Thanksgiving haunting story?”

We all moaned as Joey the Jerk said, “Oo, Oo, I do, I do!”