Bear 'Scrooge' Destroys Festive Yard Displays in Virginia Neighborhood

After days of wondering what kind of mean-spirited person was responsible for deflating a series of holiday displays in a Fairfax, Virginia, neighborhood, Melissa Ashby discovered the culprit on her security camera – a bear.

Ashby woke up on December 3 to find her blow-up “Santa in a helicopter” display completely deflated, after a few days of her friends and neighbors finding similar situations in their yards.

Ashby said the residents of the neighborhood had contacted police about the matter because they believed they had fallen victim to a slasher of sorts, and did not want the destruction to continue all the way through the holiday season.

This video shows the bear as it bites at one of the spinning propellers and begins to drag the display along the yard, before it starts to tip over and sends the bear running in the other direction.

Only a few seconds later, the curious creature walks back up to the inflatable and strikes it with its claws a few times, then bites the propeller, this time ripping it off completely.

The bear, which the neighborhood has named Slash, returns later from a different angle for the final blow, and bites into the inflatable, causing it to topple over and stop spinning its propellers.

“Our Helicopter Santa has been our trademark holiday decoration for many years now, and as far as we can tell, it’s no longer in production,” Ashby said.

Ashby, a former Navy pilot, is trying to fix the inflatable since it is part of a neighborhood tradition. She hopes to “repair the damage so we can get the chopper back into operation.” Credit: Melissa Ashby via Storyful