Is there a Christmas scrooge about? – Shreya Valera, Bancroft’s School
On the run up to Christmas, it’s safe to say that we all encounter magical things, stumble across interesting things in shops, smell wonderfully delicious things let alone eat them, but also, we can sometimes see, hear and experience some pretty strange things.
In Chigwell, Essex, one family were a testament to this. A family (who would prefer to remain unknown) on 1st December put up their Christmas decorations like any other family, to fully embrace the Christmas spirit. One member, in an interview said, ‘We usually end up putting up our Christmas decorations maybe a little bit late, but this year we were very efficient and made sure we did it first thing!’ The family adorned their front garden with Christmas lights, however they were only able to enjoy one evening of these lights. According to the family, the next morning they find a few pieces of their Christmas lights cut up and strewn across their pathway, and they simply could not understand why.
An example of the sliced wires discovered on their pathway.
In an interview one member explained their initial thoughts on this - ‘I really had a rush of terrible thoughts, particularly with the general election approaching. I considered things like racism, someone finding their flashing too bright and other things. I even had to ask my neighbors if they’d seen anything and they were equally as shocked. To be honest, it was quite upsetting.’ Upon discussion, they apparently decided to keep the rest of their lights turned off in fear of the culprit’s return. Despite this, the family repeatedly experienced the same thing night after night finding wires scattered on their drive; until they eventually had a large pile of wires stacked up and understandably they couldn’t understand why this kept happening.
Eventually, it came to their neighbor's attention that something similar had happened to them. They managed to catch some sneaky little animal (the sliest of them all) coming and chewing up their lights in the middle of the night. They were able to spot (using a motion detector) foxes grabbing their lights late in the night and dragging them to the side to sharpen their teeth with.
During the interview they also expressed their utmost relief that this was the case since the whole event had been making them feel rather unsettled, they also described however how, although the foxes were found to be the culprit, the whole saga was strange since they had lived there for almost 25 years and they had never experienced that problem despite foxes being around. They also found it odd how the wires appeared so clearly cut.
Are you experiencing a similar problem? Are you eager to catch that scrooge? You may want to consider the neighborhood mascot.
Shreya Valera
