A FUN-LOVING MUM decided to play a festive surprise on her children on Christmas morning – by covering the house in toilet paper and string.
Louise Merrick had been plotting how to surprise her children for the best part of a month including 14-year-old son Sam who admitted he had snuck down to peek at Christmas presents the year before.
The 42-year old prankster from Waterlooville, Hampshire had previously tricked Sam and older brother Liam, 17, last year by hiding their presents and displaying a sign which read: ‘The grinch was ‘ere’.
However the carer was determined to pull an even bigger prank this year and set about creating a series of obstacles her sons would have to get past to obtain their gifts from Santa.
A hilarious video shows the two boys as they try to overcome the ridiculous obstacle course featuring silly string, bin bags and balloons.
Liam is seen trying to shimmy under the binbag to reach the landing of the stairs and exclaims: “What the–.
He says: “It’s too early” as his mum can be heard giggling behind the camera.
The video then pans to reveal an entire staircase which has been set up with ribbons and string criss-crossing down towards the ground floor of the home.
Youngest son Sam can be heard asking the cat sitting on the stairs how they managed to best the trap.
He manages to wriggle under the string and reach the bottom of the stairs leaving his elder brother bemused at the top.
Louise took to social media last Sunday to share the hysterical moment.
She wrote: “Last Xmas Eve, my youngest told us that he waits ‘till we’ve gone to bed and then sneaks downstairs to see what we’ve put out. Me being me, decided that we would play a joke on them.
“So, once in bed, we packed everything away, I mean everything – tree included. Set up the cameras to see the door and went to bed.
“We were giggling under the covers, literally no idea how they didn’t hear us. Now, my kids don’t normally swear but he was just copying the grinch finger I left on fireplace.
“I actually love how he leaves his hand up after, like he doesn’t know what to do next. Then this year we decided to do a small obstacle course for them to get through.
“It was all just a bit of fun. My mum lives next door, so all presents were there and we did put the tree back up so def [sic] didn’t ruin anything but instead added to it.”
The post garnered 912 likes and 113 comments as many expressed their amusement at the comical footage.
One person said: “Brilliant! I’m really not feeling Christmas this year and I’m poorly too, but this has cheered me up.
“I’m sure your kids thought it hilarious and the kitties enjoyed the fun too. Your cats are beautiful, [by the way], Merry Christmas.”
Another wrote: “I love this. God knows where you found the energy to do all of that but you’ve given them a fantastic memory . Well done.”
A third commented: “These are the things they’ll remember, not the presents. Love it.”
A fourth added: “Absolutely brilliant, I need to do this with Hubby next year as he loves to snoop amongst the presents, [I] hid his amongst [the cat’s] presents this year.”
Speaking today, Louise said: “Last year my youngest who was 13 at the time let slip that he sneaks downstairs once we’ve gone to bed to see what’s out.
“So I thought ‘what’s the best way to stop this?’ and that’s how I came up with the idea to put everything – and I mean everything – away, leaving behind “the grinch was ‘ere” sign.
“In reality, it was all either next door in my mum’s or the outbuilding that we have, so super simple to put back out again. The video is of him finding out what we had done in the morning.
“We had the camera rigged up to our phones so we were laughing so much under the covers. This year we thought about how we can beat last years.
“First of all, we were going to fill the room with Christmas stuff, like decorations, lights etc, but my mum has a puppy and the last thing we wanted was her chewing everything. So, I came up with the assault course instead.
“The 17-year-old said “mum it’s too early” as he walked into the black bags.
“The 14-year-old barged through the bags laughing and then proceeded to navigate the stairs asking the cat on the way down “how did you do it”.
“I think they are both worried for next year now!”
