Ok, the holiday season is the best time of year to decorate your home with the gaudiest statues and brightest lights you can find. Your neighbor is probably dragged a large inflatable Santa Claus and all of his reindeer to the peak of their roof right now.

But amid all these lovely decorations, there is something you probably shouldn’t perch atop your home–a tank-piercing rocket.

Army veteran Tracy Worwood of Tacoma, Wash. received the explosive as a “going away present” from a friend. At first he kept it in the house, but when he discovered that his young son had found it, Worwood moved the rocket to the roof for safe keeping.

Despite Worwood’s intentions, the sudden appearance of a military rocket on top of a home that was only a few blocks away from an elementary school caused the community to panic. The school was locked down, the children evacuated and an Army bomb squad summoned.

Army officials that x-rayed the rocket found that it was completely functional. When they detonated it in a controlled setting, some of the shrapnel pierced through five inches of steel. This is not the type of thing you want sitting on top of your roof.

“This confirmed that the explosive device was a high explosive which could have caused injury or death,” Army prosecutors wrote.