Apparently, “George,” Doesn’t like the holidays.

As many of you know by now, we have a ghost that we call George, who lives in the back part of our house. George isn’t a malevolent spirit, but as the paranormal investigators said, “He’s a bit grouchy and just wants to be left alone.”

This usually isn’t a problem since he stays in what used to be my daughters room. When she got married three and a half years ago, George had the place to himself and was very content with the new arrangement.

However, with the holidays, we’ve needed to utilize “George’s room” much more than usual. We’ve used it to store things and even house over night guests. At first, George didn’t seem to mind too much, but that soon changed.

George completely minded his manners with our guests. (Which I am truly appreciative of) The problem came after the holidays. With all of the hustle and bustle that holidays bring, I was simply worn out. When the guests were gone and the mess was cleared away, I found that I NEEDED sleep. Serious sleep, but between my husband’s snoring and him having to get up at 4:00 a.m. this seemed like an impossible dream—until a little light bulb went off in my head. We have a perfectly good guest room, I thought.

My husband, the sweet man that he is, agreed to sleep in our daughter’s old room. The first night was wonderful. I slept better than I had in a long, long time. My husband said that he too had slept well, so we agreed to stick with this arrangement for a while.

I was happy—my husband was happy—George was not.

The first thing I noticed happened on about day three of our new sleeping arrangement. I woke up late after another restful night and I stumbled into the kitchen for my coffee. As I sipped the magical liquid down, I heard the door to my daughter’s old room slam shut. I giggled to myself, thinking George must want to be left alone.

I honored his wishes by leaving the door shut and staying out of the room. When nighttime rolled around, my husband and I kissed each other goodnight and went our separate ways.

After falling into a blissful sleep, I woke to the sound of my closet door slowly creaking open and just as slowly creaking closed. Even though it is not unusual to experience paranormal activity in any part of the house from several different entities, I had a feeling that this was George’s way of telling me that he had had enough of his room being invaded and was wanting me to see what it felt like.

Even though the opening and closing of my closet door was irritating, it still wasn’t as bad as hearing my husband snore all night so we continued with our new sleeping arrangement.

A couple of nights later, my husband said that he was awoken by unseen hands poking him in the shoulder. He told George to stop and then he rolled over and went back to sleep. He was later woke up by a loud thud and again he went back to sleep. The next morning he found a book that had previously been on a table in the adjoining room laying by the closet door. I think poor George has had enough.