The Christmas Spirit

This past Christmas, my boyfriend and I (and our dog) had to work out a compromise as to how we would split our time between our families. Christmas Eve and half of Christmas day were spent with my family, and the second half of Christmas day and Boxing Day were spent with his family, about 45 minutes away. His family was gathering at his brother's newly purchased house, an old house that had been renovated and freshly painted just in time for the traffic it would see during the holiday season.

Christmas night, after the dinner dishes had been washed and put away, the family gathered in the basement to watch Die Hard, a Christmas tradition for his family. Not being an action movie fan myself, I stuck around for a little bit but went to the second floor to get ready for bed around 11 pm. I brought the dog into the spare room we had been assigned, and began to change for bed. The dog sniffed around a bit, annoying the two cats that had taken refuge in the previously empty room - one hid in the closet, and the other leapt onto a nearby table, staring haughtily at my dog.

As I bent down to pull my toothbrush from my overnight bag, I very clearly and very distinctly heard a man's voice whisper into my right ear, "Wait right here." I froze, startled, then looked around the room wildly, blood pounding in my ears. My first thought, actually, was that the cat had said it, that's how close and how vivid the voice had been. I dashed to the door and looked both ways down the hallway, but there was nobody there - the family was still in the basement, and I could scarcely hear the volume of the television through the two floors that separated us. Heart starting to slow, I quietly made my way to the bathroom, listening intently for any more whispering, but there was none. I washed up quickly, shooed the cats out of the room, and went to bed. That night I allowed the dog to sleep next to me, which was a treat for him but mandatory for my nerves!

The next morning, I awoke to find my boyfriend on the other side of our dog. He had crawled into bed after Die Hard, a few rounds of cards, and a night cap or two, sometime in the vicinity of 2 am. I roused him gently and began to stretch and get ready for breakfast.

As my boyfriend left the bed, he commented, "I think this house is haunted," in such an offhanded way it took me a second to realise what he had said. I asked him to explain. He told me that around 2 am, as he was getting into his pyjamas, he heard a man's voice whisper directly into his ear. He ran to the hall to see who had said that, but nobody else was around, and I had been sound asleep at that time. When I asked what the voice had said, he told me something that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

The voice had said, "Wait right here."