Kiefer Sutherland Body Slamming a Christmas Tree Is Still Holiday Gold a Decade Later

Some people embrace the holiday season and others — like Kiefer Sutherland — tackle it to the freakin’ ground.

Ten years ago, the 24 star gave us one of the greatest gifts ever when he drunkenly bum-rushed a giant artificial Christmas tree in the lobby of a London hotel, knocking it over — lights, ornaments, angel, and all.

What inspired Sutherland’s NFL linebacker moment? Being told by a drinking buddy that he was “a pirate, man” to which the now-48-year-old actor slurred in reply, “That would explain everything.”

Don’t ever say, “Hey, Kiefer, you a pirate, man,” to the actor. It causes crazy things to happen. (Photo: Getty Images/Yahoo)

It’s probably more accurate to say that alcohol was the true inspiration for Kiefer’s Christmas tree carnage. “It was my holiday,” he later said by way of explanation on the U.K.’s Jonathan Ross Show, jokingly adding, “That [tree] specifically was a fire hazard, so I just wanted to clear that up.”

You can watch the entire tree body slam here (God bless YouTube):

Kiefer was a super good sport about the whole embarrassing event, which was reported in the gossip columns. The incident took place over the holidays in December 2005, when Sutherland, who has his own independent record label, was acting as the tour manager for the band Rocco DeLuca & the Burden and they were traveling throughout Europe. Instead of pretending it didn’t happen, Sutherland included footage of the outrageous moment in the 2006 documentary about his experience with the band, called I Trust You to Kill Me.

Perhaps his greatest recognition of the embarrassing moment took place several years later over Christmas 2011. For his holiday card, he pretended to tackle another decorated tree. “(Just kidding),” it said on the card as well as “Happy holidays.”

Kiefer mocked himself in his 2011 holiday card. (Photo: Twitter)

We can only hope that Kiefer will do something even better to mark the special anniversary this year. A video reenactment? The uncut version? Whatever it is, it would sure be hard to top the original, which remains holiday gold.