Mum finds mouse in artificial Christmas tree

Putting up the tree with family or friends often marks the start of the Christmas season.

But one mum was not feeling tidings of comfort and joy when she found a mouse living inside her artificial tree.

The woman named Gina posted a video to her TikTok account (@gina_premmama) of her terrifying ordeal, which she simply captioned with the word 'help'. You can see the pesky rodent camping out in her tree below:

In the short but eventful 13-second clip, Gina uses the end of a broom to move tree branches out of the way.

Presumably looking in the tree as she thought she'd spotted something in there, her instincts were certainly right.

As she moves the final branch out of the way, she discovers two glaring eyes staring directly into hers.

The mouse, for its part, does not look too fazed by Gina going in there with a broom.

The video has gone viral on TikTok with more than 2.9 million views and 217k likes.

Many viewers have taken to the comments of the TikTok, with many finding it terrifying, while others suggested what they would do in the same situation.

@gina_premmama/TikTok

One person said: "I would have destroyed the whole tree in a panic."

A second added: "The way I would’ve simply set the whole tree on fire."

Meanwhile, others said they would have had similar reactions. "One of my biggest fears," one person said, and another added: "I would have died on the spot."

There were some others that had a calmer head though, with one suggesting a way to avoid the mouse getting there in the first place.

They said: "Shake the tree before you bring it out of storage."

Another described the mouse as 'adorable', saying that Gina should name the name and keep the small animal.

While another TikTok user pleaded: "Please don’t hurt him. You may have taken his home accidentally please don’t hurt him."

Gina uploaded a follow-up video which confirmed that the mouse did make it out of the house in one piece.

@gina_premmama/TikTok

But there was a bit of drama first, as the woman's two cats were trying to catch the mouse as it hid under the sofa.

However, Gina captioned the video by saying that 'no mouse was harmed in the making of this video he's now safely outside with the Christmas tree'.

So the cats were seemingly unsuccessful in their attempts.