Santa snake....

(CNN) There's usually a sense of excitement about what lies beneath the Christmas tree, but for one festive family the biggest surprise was lurking in the branches up above.

Rob and Marcela Wild wasted no time in calling in a professional after they discovered one of Africa's most venomous snakes hiding between the tinsel and baubles at their home in South Africa on Friday.
Having decorated the tree just hours earlier, they spotted their cats staring at its branches.

Rob Wild, a British stock market trader who moved with his Costa Rican wife to South Africa 18 years ago, told CNN on Tuesday: "The cats were peering into the tree and my wife said 'there's probably a mouse in there somewhere.'"
They soon discovered a rather different animal staring back, however -- a boomslang.
"I didn't know what it was at the time but then I Googled what snakes are in our area and it came up immediately as a boomslang. I thought 'holy Moses, this is the king of all poisonous snakes,'" the 55-year-old said.
The boomslang is known as a shy species, but it is one of the most venomous in Africa. The animal's venom causes hemorrhages and can be fatal to humans in small amounts.