When you bring a real tree inside your home and decorate it for Christmas, you probably already know that a few bugs hiding in that thing. But did you know there could also be some live animals, too?

Okay, so that’s pretty rare, but that’s just what happened to the Newman family a few days before the holidays.

It was a Thursday evening when Georgia resident Katie McBride Newman was cleaning up dinner when her daughter, India, ran over with a bold statement for her mom.

“She comes very dramatically into the dining room and goes, ‘Mama, that ornament scared me,'” Katie explained. “Then she bursts into tears.”

Katie figured she was just talking about one of her owl ornaments. Being a huge lover of owls, the mom naturally had tons of ornaments in the shape of the animal hanging all over the tree.

However, when she went to go inspect it, she too was just as shocked as her daughter. Inside was a real, live owl, perched among her many fake owl ornaments!

It’s unclear just how long the owl had been nestled in the tree, but experts say, based on its size and when the tree was purchased, it could’ve been over an entire week. Thankfully, the owl was in pretty good health—though a bit on the thinner side, it wasn’t injured.

At first, the family tried to get the owl to fly outside by leaving the windows and doors opened, but it was probably too cozy with its other owl friends in the tree so it never left. They eventually called the Chattahoochee Nature Center for help. In the meantime, they fed the owl raw chicken and water.

When the experts from Chattahoochee got there, they were eventually able to get the owl in a box and release it back into its natural habitat.

What a Christmas for this family! What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever found in your Christmas tree?