Dogs Protect Owner From 'Cursed' Santa Ornament in Basement for 60 Years

Whenever you dig out the Christmas decorations from their hiding places, it can fill you with nostalgia as you recover old forgotten ornaments every year. But how many of us have found a festive decoration that's lasted for over six decades, and even works still?

For many years, Connecticut resident Jimmy, who doesn't wish to disclose his full name, had spotted the creepy ornament of Santa riding in his sleigh in the basement of his New Haven home, but only this year did he decide it was time to bring it to life.

While he admitted that he was "always creeped out by it," Jimmy wanted to see his family's reaction when he dusted it off and brought it out into the open. "It was during Thanksgiving, when all my family was over, and I thought it would be funny to sneak upstairs with the decorations and prank my mom," he told Newsweek.

Jimmy believes that it could be more than 100 years old, having lived in the basement of his home for 60 years. While the Santa may have lost most of its hair and look more like the "nightmare before Christmas," Jimmy hoped it would still work and he shared the video on his TikTok page (@morethanjustacabinetguy). He wasn't expecting much of a response, but to his amazement, the video went viral with more than 1.5 million views and 137,800 likes so far.

"Part of me thought it might work because older things were built better, but I was skeptical," Jimmy said. "But now all my friends want to see it because it's become internet famous."

Jimmy's antiquated ornament might have been a hit with social media, who think it's "ridiculous, ugly, and cursed," but his two dogs, Mia in particular, were far less impressed by the choice of décor. As soon as they spotted it, the pair wouldn't stop barking at the Santa in his sled, much to Jimmy's amusement.

He joked that she may be small in stature, but Mia is also very fierce, and he thought "it was super cute that she was trying to protect us from it."

Nowadays, many people take their festive decorating very seriously and everything has to look perfect. When it comes to choosing what to put on the tree, a recent survey by Statista showed that unsurprisingly, ornaments are the top choice for 77 percent of people, and 68 percent of people use light strings.

While candy canes, tinsel, and homemade decorations were also popular choices, it appears that wooden figurines like Jimmy's were far less favorable, liked by just 20 percent of people. However, the decorations which people chose the least included hearts, 13 percent, and letterings, 9 percent.

Speaking about the online reaction, Jimmy continued: "I had no idea it would get this many views. While it's not a life changing video, it's certainly an eye opener and I've gained a lot of followers from it. I wasn't planning on posting it because it doesn't fit my page, but I had a gut feeling that it would get a lot of attention."

Due to the overwhelming response to his video, Jimmy has even shared multiple follow up videos of the Santa decoration to give people an ever better look at it. His initial post has also received over 5,300 comments since November 26, with so many people joking that it could be haunted.

One comment reads: "You've awoken him. What has been put into motion cannot be undone."

Another person responded: "Well now you've released that spirit..."

While one TikTok user wrote: "I would have been way too scared of my house burning down to plug that in."

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