No-one can stop laughing at this surly cat crashing a nativity scene

As lovely as the holiday season is, it can be kind of tiresome. There's the cold weather (in many parts of the world), the huge number of social events and end of year work stress, and – come on now – there are only so many times a person can hear All I Want For Christmas before they just want to curl up in a ball and never leave the comfort of their bed again. For Brooke Goldman, who found herself walking the New York City sidewalks on a cold autumn morning to drop her travel-bound boyfriend at the train station, she was feeling exactly those holiday blues. “I was pretty out of it,” she told The Dodo. “I was trying to get home as fast as possible to go back to sleep and wasn’t ready for the day at all.”

But little did she know that she would come across something that would really perk her up and add a little more festive cheer to her day. Sleepily striding past a building in her neighbourhood of Astoria, Queens, Brooke noticed something odd in a nativity scene set up in someone's front yard. It appeared that baby Jesus's manger had been occupied by a new holy figure – none other than a very grumpy looking cat. Behold:

“I was laughing pretty hard, especially at the fact that the cat looked pretty angry as well. I was invading his space, but I couldn’t pass up the moment,” Brooke told Bored Panda.

"I guess you can definitely say he brought me joy while I was walking home. It was mood-lifting, most definitely. Laughing that hard that early in the morning makes the rest of the day much more positive."

Rather than keeping it for herself, Brooke decided she'd share it with the world and posted it on the Catspotting Facebook group. “I really do believe that a good animal pic can cure anything,” she said. And now, it's been circulated everywhere. “It started off as a silly image in my neighborhood that is now being posted and shared all over the internet, I’m being interviewed, and it’s becoming a meme. This is a dream come true in the goofiest of ways,” Brooke said of the whole thing. And it's true, just one look at Twitter shows you how many people were delighted by the picture. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/erinruberry/status/938759018838970368]] [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/_9boese9woelfin/status/938582213385510912]] [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/SandraLoSasso/status/939105078098714625]] [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/LARainLARain/status/938780129064562688]] And others shared their own pictures of other nativity scenes of this nature... [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/tridog57/status/938632036843184128]] [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/tridog57/status/938631713957302273]] [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/Psychicbea/status/938586613499576321]] However, some were quick to point out how unfair it was that the cat didn't receive the heavy criticism that this sausage roll did. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/S4lutations/status/938577767255470080]] British bakery chain Greggs controversially replaced baby Jesus with one of their sausage rolls for a festive promotional piece this year, which was met with severe criticism and threats of boycotting from some who were less than happy with it. Greggs since apologised for the image, but many people still found the humour in the whole thing. [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/tomvictor/status/930733592984084480]] [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/notDcfcBoss/status/930723662306652160]] Well, probably because the cat just has that adorable, grumpy cat appeal. And maybe he was just warming it up for the baby, who's really only meant to be there on the 25th anyway.