One of the Christmasy animals is visiting the Toronto Star’s newsroom. It seems to be making a good argument for keeping animals outdoors: The animal “peed on the carpet and now it smells,” photo editor Canice Leung tweeted, adding soon after that the reindeer had disgraced another office:
STAR REINDEER UPDATE: it pooped in editor in chief michael cooke’s office. investigative reporter diana zlomislic is cleaning it up.— Canice Leung (@canice) December 20, 2012
- David Cooper/Toronto Star
Star reporter Micah Luxen says her colleague Emily Mathieu brought the reindeer — whose name is Ivy — into the office.
The pranks started after Mathieu “brought the interns a bowl of candy for Halloween, and I decided to retaliate by wrapping everything on her desk in Christmas wrap on Halloween night,” Luxen says.
Mathieu explains the rest by email:
This started with the Radio Room gift wrapping my desk in November. Diana and I shot back with dangling stars and tinsel garlands inside the glass enclosed box where they spend eight hour shifts. We also hung snowflakes with their photos on it.
Their next move was a road cone wrapped in newspaper and covered in ornaments. We came back with an inflatable snowman, a sparkling dinosaur with a moving head and an eight foot tall palm tree complete with monkey.
Luxen confirms: “My office is literally filled with blow up Christmas decorations (the kind people put on their lawns), including a moving dinosaur.”
And then, “I came in on Wednesday to find my desk transformed into a house,” Mathieu says.
- Jim Rankin/Toronto Star
“The reindeer,” she says, “was really the only option left.” She and Diana Zlomislic rented Ivy from Exotic Critter Tales, which describes itself as “Toronto’s Alternative Petting Zoo.” They had the support of Star Editor Michael Cooke, Mathieu writes.
Mathieu sent Poynter this spoof story that circulated around the newsroom: 
Correction: This post originally said Micah Luxen was male, but Micah is female. It also gave the wrong last name for Michael Cooke.
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