First they came for my decorative robins. Next they went for the bauble strings. Now those pesky mice have gone and put the little furry boot into our Christmas good and proper.
Our four-legged no-longer-friends have been running amok in the attic, chewing up the insulation and generally making a nuisance of themselves as they tried to escape the cold.
Then things turned personal.
When December 1 arrived, I looked out the ladder and merrily climbed the steps to my Christmas decorations. Pride of place among them are my festive robins.
Correction: pride of place among them were my festive robins.
You can imagine first my surprise and then my dismay when I realised they had been mauled; their only crime seemingly that they taste interesting to mice.
Mice like glitter
They had little glittery bellies, and that’s when I learned mice like glitter. I learned it when, a few days later, we put our Christmas tree up and I reached into the bag of baubles that I had already brought down from the attic, only to find that their strings had been eaten. Their glittery strings.
I spent the rest of the afternoon putting new ties on my baubles and calling those mice everything under the sun.
I recorded a silly little short for my YouTube channel, naively believing this was the end of the Christmas carnage.
But the worst was yet to come. An orchestrated assault on Christmas.
Presents all bought – what could possibly go wrong?
There is only one saving grace here, because usually I wouldn’t get around to wrapping the kids’ gifts until Christmas Eve. This year, I thought I would buy myself some time by doing a little bit of wrapping every night of Christmas week.
I usually hide gifts in the garage, which is attached to the house, so it’s become a bit of a storage space.
I keep the kids’ gifts in black plastic bags (which they always find and pretend they haven’t, and I always know and pretend I don’t).
When I went into the garage, took the sheet off that I use to cover what everyone knows is there and looked into the bag, I immediately smelt a mouse.
The first sign all was not well came when I lifted out a fleecy onesie for my eldest son. The clear plastic wrapping around it had holes in it and some of the fleece was coming away.
Instinctively I leaned forward to sniff it and instantly regretted it. A mouse had made its mark.
Mice have made mincemeat of my best-laid plans
Turned out, the mice had made their mark (ones and twos) on a lot of things.
All the sweets, including a bumper bag of jelly beans (hope they get the teeth rot I feared my son would), had been eaten into.
Cellophane wrapping covering video games and plastic gaming characters had been chewed.
Shirts had been peed on… and then the really sad thing.
Not content with eating my Christmas decorations, mice have now found the gifts I was hiding in the garage. It’s a mess. Clothes destroyed, sweets and packaging eaten.😩 pic.twitter.com/ksZr5jAfaO
— Clare Johnston (@ClareS_J) December 21, 2021
A beautiful puffy Ralph Lauren jacket (all right, I got it in TK Maxx) had been mauled and soiled.
I had bought it for my youngest son and I was so delighted with my bargain and the prospect of him looking so smart in it. But those inconsiderate invaders had other plans.
I imagine them safely tucked away behind their mouse hole, giggling as they watch me cry out in despair at yet another disturbing discovery.
Well, tonight I’m having the last laugh – because there’s a new furry footman in town and he doesn’t take prisoners.
Allow me to introduce you to Bob the cat. He arrived today with my sister for Christmas, and I don’t have to tell you where he’s sleeping.
Clare Johnston is a journalist and skills and innovation partner for DC Thomson