Kiefer Sutherland proved he’s in on the joke! The former *24 *star shared his hilarious holiday card, which shows him pretending to assault a Christmas tree, just in time for the holidays.

The photo shows the 24 actor poised to launch himself at a fully-decorated Christmas tree, mocking his 2006 incident in the documentary I Trust You To Kill Me, in which he attacked a holiday tree.

The actor sent out a “Happy holidays!” message to his Twitter followers yesterday, along with the photo above of him comically attacking a Christmas tree. Sutherland graciously supplied the caption “(just kidding)” for people concerned that the beautiful ornaments will be damaged.

Confused? Here’s the backstory…

Around this time in 2006, Kiefer was working on a documentary called I Trust You to Kill Me about the band Rocco DeLuca and the Burden. During a layover in London, Kiefer–who appeared to have guzzled some eggnog (or other holiday spirits) earlier in the night–is in the foyer of a hotel when a member of his party approaches him and says, “Hey, Kiefer, you a pirate, man.” Without batting an eye, Kiefer replies, “That would explain everything” and proceeds to bum rush one of the fully-decorated Christmas trees the hotel has on display, knocking it down to the ground.

It’s a good thing they taped it since it’s very funny. Sutherland also has a sense of humour about it, which is nice to see.

Kiefer Sutherland has a lot to be happy about this Christmas, after it was announced earlier this month that the film adaptation of his iconic US TV show 24 had been given the green light.

According to Deadline Hollywood, acclaimed screenwriter Mark Bomback has been brought on board to rewrite Billy Ray’s original screenplay.

And 20th Century Fox is reportedly expecting that Bomback will submit a new screenplay in the new year, allowing them to begin filming in the spring.

A film adaptation of the popular show has been in the works for a few years, with Sutherland revealing some plot details in a prior interview.

He said: ‘It’s going to be a two-hour representation of a 24 hour day, so we were not going to be restrained by the real time aspect of the TV show. With the TV show we always had to have the crisis come to us because we couldn’t move. Twice we put Jack on a plane and it was a disaster.

‘This will be different – it will be very feasible to get from Eastern Europe to England in the course of 24 hours! And the crisis can be more personal – it doesn’t have to be a huge bomb, it doesn’t have to take out the rest of the world. It’s very exciting.’