Woman finds three-meter-long snake in her Christmas tree

A woman from Brisbane has shared some arresting pictures of a gigantic snake she found hiding inside the branches of her Christmas tree.

Leanne Chapman, an English woman who recently moved to Australia from the UK, is having her first Christmas down under. Her and her partner bought a small fir tree for their outside patio, and while photographing some birds one day, he leaned on the tree and was shocked to find a three-meter-long reptile wrapped around the branches.

Commenting on the incident in a recent interview with 7News, Leanne stated: "We came home from work and there's a couple of butcher birds that visit every day and they were just kicking off on the balcony, going crazy. My partner's gone out there was actually videoing them because they were going mad."

She continued: "As he's turned around and stepped back, he didn't realize he was leaning on the Christmas tree with the snake wrapped around it. It was a bit of a shock to begin with. You don't really expect to see a snake in your Christmas tree."

Check out this disturbing video of a snake attacking a man: 

She added: "It was big, really big. It wasn't bothered by us. It just stayed there for a good few hours as we watched it through the window. We thought it's not going to do any harm. As long as it didn't come in the house, it could stay out there. After the initial shock wore off, it was a really beautiful snake. It was actually quite nice to see it that close up because I've never seen anything like it before."

But this isn't the first time we've written about a close encounter with a reptile. Recently, another woman from Australia shared a picture of an incredibly deadly rare snake that appeared in her backyard one day.