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We had an unexpected visitor this year to our Thanksgiving celebration.

In the United States, Thanksgiving is a big deal. It is a holiday that has grown up around one of our seminal national tales, that of the British colonists and the indigenous Indian tribes coming together in a harvest meal to give thanks for the bounty of the past year. As such it touches many of our beliefs: the belief in the rewards of hard work, the belief in the Grace of a God of plenty, and the rightness of gathering periodically to give thanks for the grace given us in the previous year.

Missed by the foreign observer is the role of Thanksgiving as a family gathering. It is the biggest travel holiday of the year, because Americans of all ages, denominations and national origins travel great distances to sit down with family members over a special meal. The meal has a ritual component, with a Turkey (the quintessential American food) and a range of side dishes that change depending on ones national origin. But Thanksgiving is one thing that brings us together as Americans.

Part of our family’s thanksgiving tradition is to invite visitors to join us. Thanksgiving is an awkward time to be in America if you are from a foreign country, or have no family within traveling distance, or for some other reason don’t have a place to go. For this reason we look for Thanksgiving Strays – people without a place to go, and include them in our celebration.

Last year it was future in-laws whose home was damaged due to repairs on a water leak. In past years it has been foreign students studying in the area, without a place to go.

This year we had some of our regular guests. My neice Hana is studying at University in the States, and can’t get home to Japan for Thanksgiving, so we hosted her for a week of home cooking and viewing of the last two seasons of Lost on DVD. Our friends Fernando and Valerie, a Peruvian Printer and a French Pharmaceutical Scientist, are regular guests. But this year we had an unexpected visitor.

I was up and about first thing on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day. For the last few years I have done the Turkey, usually the exclusive province of the senior resident female. I buy a fresh turkey breast, about 10 to 12 pounds, and soak it overnight in a sugar-salt brine. Then I cover it with a dry poultry rub, and broil it over a slow, smoky charcoal fire, with fruitwood chips added to create the smoke. The results are impressive, a moist turkey breast with a delicate smoky flavor, covered with a mahogany-colored skin crusted with herbs. The “snivvies” (small fatty edge chunks) that the Grill Cook gets from this dish are the richest, best tasting bites I’ll have all day.

I was up and about to get the fire going early, and heard some cat activity in the kitchen. Obie, the Snow Bengal hunting cat, had brought in his prey. He is a prolific hunter, bringing in dead mice, voles, chipmunks, moles, etc. several times a week in the summer. This morning he brought in a Grey Squirrel, infrequent prey but not remarkable. Grey Squirrels are larger, mean, fast, highly agile, and difficult prey, but Obie gets them, usually the younger and less wary. The problem with this particular squirrel was that it was still alive.

I heard some scuffling, and saw the squirrel run into the adjacent office. I went in, and saw it, perched on the window sill, looking very much alive and intact. I had a fire to get going, and a bird to get on the coals, so I left him to the cats.

Two hours or so later I remembered the squirrel, and looked for him in the office. No squirrel. There was no squirrel corpse beside the food bowl – the usual final resting place. No one else had seen the squirrel. Upstairs in the hall I thought I saw a small dark form heading towards the third floor bedroom. He has escaped upstairs, I thought.

Guests and Family came, with no sign of the squirrel, and the meal commenced. The turkey was very good, the gravy was named “best ever”, and the oven stuffing, sweet potato pie, and French cheese course were excellent.

After desert the kids were milling around, so I described our furry visitor, and organized a Squirrel Hunt. We all took willow sticks from an arrangement, and went to the top floor with the goal of poking under and behind furniture with the sticks and flushing the rodent out. Third floor, second floor bedrooms and closets, nothing. We had a false alarm when we flushed out the seal brown Zeke, our male Abyssinian, out from under the bed where he was cowering. Lots of fun, but no squirrel.

Down to the first floor, and poked all around the office, no dice. So we hung out in the office and played Lego Star Wars on the X-box 360 (highly recommended for all ages) and discovered that the young cousins Matt and Doug were in fact Jedi Masters of the game, and had found 179 of the 180 mini-kits hidden in the scenes. Then it was time to leave, and some suspected that the squirrel had been just a game for the entertainment of the children.

Cleanup commenced, Fernando and Valerie hugged and left, and we were down to the core group. I sat down in the office, and unfolded the paper, which I had not looked at all day. As I sat and read, a book fell off of the bookshelves across the small room. I thought nothing of it, but a few minutes later something clicked, and I went over and checked out the fallen book. On a shelf, from behind a layer of books I saw a fluffy squirrel tail protruding. He had never left the office.

I stepped out and summoned some other family members to look at the tell-tale tail. There were some muffled exclamations, and we stepped back out to the hall to plan the Squirrel extraction. Squirrels are quick, mean, bite, and may be rabid, so no one wanted to go in and grab him by the tail. We closed the door to the Kitchen, opened the door to the hall, opened the front door, stationed Ken in the front door with a broom, placed Marie blocking the hall with a broom, and the rest of the girls were arrayed behind as a backstop.

I went in with a pasta server, and began to extract him from the bookshelf. After a few pokes he stirred, looked, and leaped down to the floor. I rushed him, and he ran out the door to the hall as planned. It was at this point that the plan went awry.

The squirrel was in the hall with the open front door two feet to his right. Ken took a swipe at him to sweep him out. Ken missed, and the squirrel darted left around the broom. The squirrel rushed Marie, who was blocking the hall with the open bathroom door. The squirrel faked right, went left, and ran up her broom and between Marie’s legs and out into the great room.

From my viewpoint in the office I saw the squirrel disappear down the hall, heard some scuffling, then heard a chorus of unholy screaming as the squirrel broke into view in the great room. The girls leaped for chairs and couches, Ken was in hot pursuit, and I’m doubled over in the hall, helpless with laughter.

It took ten minutes of swiping, screaming, poking, herding, scuffling, more screaming, gasping with laughter, hiding, furniture moving, cutting off at the pass, redoubled screaming, and squirrel hockey to finally run him to ground. All attempts to get him to run out of the open doors had failed. There he was, crouched in a small puddle of squirrel pee, gasping for breath, in an empty basket. Ken gingerly picked up the basket, and carried it outside. We sat around wheezing, and wiping the tears from our eyes.

The “Great Squirrel Hunt”, as it has come to be known, is now on the internet. “Mr Nutters” survived his Thanksgiving visit and now has his own Facebook group, with shots of the hunt captured via cellphone cam, and shout outs on the graffiti wall by participants and fans. And we have an experience to relive in all of its richness next year, and for years to come.