Timmy woke that morning to the most wonderful smells wafting up from the kitchen downstairs.  It was Thanksgiving morning and that meant there would soon be lots of relatives, close friends, and most importantly, plenty of great food!

As Timmy wandered downstairs towards the kitchen, the most delicious smells continued to fill the air.  The closer he came, the more distinct smells he sniffed out.  Was that sweet potatoes seasoned with nutmeg, cinnamon, and a dash of cloves?  He hoped the dish would be covered with small melty marshmallows spread over the top with brown sugar forming a sweet golden crust.

Then, he caught the whiff of green bean casserole with French-fried onions, bacon bits, and cream of mushroom soup!  There would be loaded mashed potatoes with tons of butter, gobs of sour cream and chives, perfect for ladling on the gravy from the turkey!

The turkey, oh the turkey!  Mommy made it best turkey, tender white meat, juicy dark meat and the stuffing that was out of this world, and he could hardly wait to get at it.

As Timmy entered the kitchen, he noticed the counters were loaded with delicious foods in various stages of assembly.  Trays of sliced cheeses, several kinds of crackers, peanut butter or cream cheese stuffed celery, chips and dips, little sweet pickles, radishes, carrot sticks, two kinds of olives.  His appetite grew the closer he got to the source of the yummy scents.

Timmy greeted Mommy, and his favorite aunt who were racing about kitchen, mixing up last minute concoctions, adding pie fillings into the crusts, and whipping the cream with baby sister Wendy trying to help, while somehow always getting in the way.

Timmy went straightaway to the bowl of pitted black olives.  He quickly jammed an olive on each fingertip and walked stiffly toward baby Wendy with his hands held like claws.  “I’m gonna get you.  I am the olive monster,” Timmy bellowed in his most sinister voice.

“He gonna get me Mommy,” screamed baby Wendy, “Him a monster!”

Mommy laughed saying, “Calm down. Don’t you know your own big brother?  Alright now you guys, it’s time to get ready, the guests will be arriving soon.  Go change out of your jammies and into your nice clothes.”

Before long the doorbell rang, and the guests began to arrive.  The first to show was Aunt and Uncle with Cousin Cindy.  She was exactly in between the ages of Baby Wendy and Timmy so it worked well for all of them.  Over the next hour other aunts, uncles, cousins and friends continued to arrive.

As each guest arrived, all they wanted to do was to grab each child, pinch cheeks, bear hug, plant wet kisses, and ruffle hair!  The house was warm, so Daddy took their overcoats, hats and other wraps as they came in.  Once Aunt Ruth finished her ritual of taunting each child, she removed her stylish big, brimmed red hat.  She kept the hat in place with a long hat pin stuck through the hat, through her beehive hairdo and out the other side of the hat.  As she pulled the pin out, Baby Wendy had a look of terror on her face as she asked, “Does dat needle stick into your brain?”  Everyone laughed as they moved into the parlor to await the call to dinner.

Soon, Mommy announced that it was time to take their seats at the huge dining table.  Timmy was ready to feast!  Once everyone settled in, prayers of thanks (which seemed to go on forever) were said.  Finely, the food was beginning to move around the table.  Salads, side dishes, vegetables and entrees, dish after dish, moved back and forth about the table and then, at last desert!  Homemade pies with fresh whipped cream!

Then came chatting and catching up with each other.  During desert, Timmy accidently dropped his spoon.  He slowly lifted the long white linen tablecloth bending down to search for his lost utensil.  He looked down the length of the long table and he saw a tunnel filled with legs.  He grabbed the missing spoon and returned topside into his seat.  He leaned over whispering while waving to Cousin Cindy, “Hey, come with me,” he said as he disappeared into the tunnel under the table.

Cousin Cindy quickly joined him.  She thought that this was the coolest thing she had seen all day!  Next, Wendy caught on and slipped under the table to join in the fun.  They crawled up and down the length of the table trying to identify which guest belonged to which set legs.  They would gently tickle the legs of the guest until they would move their leg trying to brush away an unseen fly.  The kids giggled quietly trying to suppress their laughter as to not make a sound and get caught. Finely, they came to where Cousin Larry was seated.  Cousin Larry always confused Timmy because he was older than Timmy’s Daddy but somehow was still Timmy’s cousin!

Well, Timmy happened to know a secret about Cousin Larry, he had a wooden leg because his leg had been sawed off by the doctor on account of diabetes.  See, Cousin Larry suffered from illness due to falling out of tree he was climbing as a kid.  That caused him to rupture his pancreas, which is how he came down with diabetes.

Timmy, still holding the spoon he had dropped earlier, whispered as he pointed out to the girls that this was Cousin Larry’s leg.  He told them Cousin Larry was immune to pain.  Timmy said that he would prove it by knocking on Cousin Larry’s shin with the spoon! Thunk, thunk, thunk, went the spoon and of course Cousin Larry didn’t budge.  “Wow!” said the girls in unison, “that’s sooo cool!”

“Now stay here!  I’ll be right back,” ordered Timmy.  He knew that everyone would soon be getting up from the table and the image of Aunt Ruth’s huge hat pin burned in his brain!  Timmy thought that it would be hilarious to stick that pin in Cousin Larry’s wooden leg and leave it there so after everyone left the table, he would be seen walking around the house with that big needle sticking out of his leg.

Timmy quickly snuck to the bedroom where the pile of winter wear was stashed.  He quickly found Aunt Ruth’s hat carefully laid out on the dresser with that hat pin sticking out of it.

He came back to the table, sliding down into the tunnel and crawled down to where the girls were waiting in anticipation of what Timmy would come up with next.  Timmy whipped out the hat pin, presenting it to the girls like a sword fighter.   He slowly moved up on Cousin Larry and the girls gasped as he a thrust the pin deep into the wooden leg.  “Oh, my goodness,” breathed Cousin Cindy clasping her hand over her eyes.

“It’s true,” breathed baby Wendy.

“I wanna give it a try,” Cousin Cindy said yanking the pin out of Cousin Larry’s wooden leg and quickly plunged it back into the other leg…Cousin Larry’s real leg!

Suddenly, everyone around the table was wondering why in the world Cousin Larry would shoot up like a rocket and begin to recite his vowels at the top of his lungs!  “A, E, I, O, U!” Cousin Larry, screamed, “My leg, my leg!  I’ve been stung!” He continued to hopping around the room until Daddy noticed that needle sticking out of his leg.

“Larry, it looks like you have Aunt Ruth’s hat pin sticking out of your leg,” Daddy observed.

“I wonder how that got there?” sobbed Cousin Larry as he pulled it out.  “I’ve been stabbed!”

“I think I know just how it happened,” Daddy stated flatly.  “Kids come out from under the table…Timmy?”

“I didn’t do anything,” defended Timmy!  “We were just playing under the table.  It was Cindy who stuck him!”

“Yeah, after you told us cousin Larry couldn’t feel pain!” retorted Cindy.

“He has a wooden leg which is why he couldn’t feel it when I stuck him.  You stuck him in his good leg,” cried Timmy.

“You better come with me Timmy,” ordered Daddy.  Needless to say; Timmy got a good lickin’ and could not sit down the rest of the night.  What a shame Timmy played such a mean-spirited prank on his own family.  His unthinking actions wrecked the rest of the night for everyone.  What should have been the best Thanksgiving ended an unhappy thanksgiving

We need to be careful of what we do, what we say and how we lead others or allow them to lead us.

“Be sure your sin will find you out.”

Numbers 32:23