The thankstaking dinner.

“Lep, you made it! Snowhite, here, said you were miffed with us; you showed her the finger. I said, a leprechaun miffed, even if it was you, Slanky, a leprechaun just doesn’t get its nose out of joint for long, they get even. Have you gotten even, Slanky?

“Take no notice of Snowhite, Santa, she has so much dosh with the workaholic dwarfs bringing in diamonds and gold every day, she fabricates problems instead. She and the dwarfs did such a good demolition of the wicked queen, any real opponents are too scared to say boo to her.”

“Good to hear, Slanky. Go and sample the mushroom and cannabis brew the elves made. Don’t take too much of it, or you won’t be around for the ‘Thankstaking’ dinner. We’ve got quite a collection this year lifted off of the very best disbelieving families.”

Santa opened a door a crack and Slanky could see an enormous pile of laptops, mobile phones, jewels and ‘high-end’ fashion clothing. Santa couldn’t for the life of him see why they would want to distribute fashion clothing to ‘Third World’ poverty-ridden people. Then he remembered the ‘Trans-genders’ agitating for these. Apparently, just because one is poor, these souls like to keep up appearances. 

Santa called over a bunch of fairies to check they had dusted the food in a fine coating of the magic taste enhancers. The elves just loved to get up to mischief, and last years Thanktaking dinner tasted to a large extent like a garlic convention for demon exorcists. No matter, he would foil them this year under the threat of having their ears clipped and consigning them to mediocrity.

   This years dinner festival was going to experience a radical development; humans. Well superhumans, actually. Thanks to ‘Marvel’ comics and movies, young kids saw the ‘evidence’ of miraculous feats of human speed, invisibility, strength and the ability to see things not previously believed, and it was so. They saw fairies dancing around mushrooms, and spoke to people who were convinced had ‘passed-away’ before their time. Others waited up for Santa and got a personal invitation to the ‘Thankstaking’ dinner.

In the meantime, the elves, all of them wearing tight-fitting hats enclosing their ears, were munching on the very best psychedelic biscuits they had ever tasted. Any inhibition to engage in their idea of frivolity was rapidly disappearing. A few of them snuck into the unattended fairies dressing room and poured superglue on the special gossamer pillows the spiders made for them. Then, they plied a dragon with their special brew and encouraged him to storm into the fairy’s room breathing fire and chasing them out minus their panties that were stuck to the cushions, much to the hilarity of the rest of the dinner family. Although Santa enjoyed the spectacle of bare-assed fairies, he made threatening gestures toward the miscreants, wielding a very large pair of scissors. He knew the fairies wouldn’t take this humiliation lying down and he would be the one the elves ran to after the fairies had concocted a few spells to bring about a large measure of regret in the elves. He may not need to trim ears after all.

Humans, super or not, were not universally greeted with enthusiasm. Fairies had to be careful where they flew as some of these ‘children’ were six foot tall. The fairies were used to skimming closer to the ground, not this high altitude stuff they had to adopt around this ‘Thankstaking’ dinner. Also, these ‘Wonder Kins’ didn’t really belong, they thought. They were cumbersome and considered gross by the fairies. Unless something was done with them, they might not be back for next year’s festivities.

Gradually the sun went down and the stars started to sparkle from the abundance of fairy dust. Flute music began being heard and the strains of ‘Bolero’ seemed to come from all corners of the glade. Slowly ghosts emerged out of the shadows and danced gracefully, reminiscent of Torvill and Deans Olympic performance. Then the music changed to an up-beat rendition that heralded in an obviously ‘new’ ghost of tender years hip-hopping. He swirled divided himself in two to dance with ‘himself’ before finally shooting like a rocket into the sky, narrowly missing some high flying fairies. A standing ovation was given for all of the ghostly performances.  

Elves had talked some snails into being their musical instruments. By plying them with different quantities of lettuce, they had perfected a tuning regimen that equalled the best set of musical bells you have ever heard. Even the fairies applauded despite the earlier aggravation. However, now the meal beckoned them.

The miraculous community were, of course, vegetarians. Their friends were animals and insects in all their different varieties. The plants gave of themselves willingly, as this enabled them to grow again and stay strong. The bees brought honey and the birds seeds. The fairy’s wands did the rest, and everybody tucked in.

Having completed eating, Snowhite pinged her glass with a spoon. When all was quiet, she started to speak. 

“Good friends I have just received disquieting news, the wizards and witches are very peeved that we favoured the ‘super-humans’ over them this year. I pointed out to them that we are a rather moral community of miraculous folk. Indeed,  their sex orgy got a little out of control last year when they cast a spell commanding the pixies to distribute prophylactics to all the wizards. Merlin, yes he’s still around and apparently with his libido still intact, called me a ‘bluenose.’ A bluenose, mind you. I’m not a ‘fuddy-duddy,’ I am discreet, certainly not a bluenose. Anyway, I’ll sort that out with them later. Further, they said they didn’t want to be here and I said good, you aren’t. We may not have heard the last from them.”

   As Snowhite uttered those words a huge black cloud descended upon the glade with deafening thunderclaps causing all present to cover their ears. Torrential rain poured down upon them before Santa could marshal all the fairies and pixies to make sheltering spells. The day was saved by a human. He called upon someone or something and gigantic rays of energy came out of his body to construct a transparent dome that shut out all rain and noise. The fairies and pixies then made spells to dry everyone and salvage what was left of the dinner.

   After everyone had settled down, the topic of revenge was mooted. Did they want revenge really? Of course, they did. Revenge was the ‘lifeblood’ of the magic community. Heads rolling, impaling upon stakes as ‘grist for the mill’ in the world of spells and wicked step-mothers; they put their heads together.

   Snowhite, as usual, came out with a satisfactory ‘pay-back.’

“It appears,” she said, “that our dome maker Enervox, can make domes impervious to wizard and witches’ spells, so let's enclose them. I understand that we have another special ability human, Crybub, who can set up the excruciating sound of babies crying that he has used to empty stadiums of lingering people. If he can set it going inside of the dome for twenty-four hours, I think payback will be achieved.

This they did, and it was.

The post-mortem of the Thankstaking day was finally voted a success.