Cat Versus Christmas Tree
By: Nancy Parish
Tags: Christmas, Life Lessons, Cats, Pets, Anecdotes

Humor

Cat Versus Christmas Tree

Photo by Thalia Ruiz on Unsplash

Decorating the family Christmas tree will always be one of my favorite Christmas traditions. When I was a girl, we’d fire up the Christmas music usually The Bing Crosby Christmas album, to help set the mood. Then, we’d perform the annual Christmas light inspection to ensure the string of lights had made it through another year tangled in storage. Finally, we’d decorate the tree with our favorite ornaments — collected through the years — often reminiscing about Christmases past. It always signaled the start of the Christmas season for me.

I don’t get a Christmas tree anymore. It has nothing to do with the depth of my Christmas spirit. I love Christmas. I love trees and I especially love the smell of pine trees.

I also love cats. My cats love Christmas trees

I’ve learned through the years that cats and Christmas trees are a combination that ends in disaster. Ornaments cascading down the branches, Cats racing to the summit of the tree. One year I purchased a small tree, not a Charlie Brown tree, but a tiny live pine version from Christmases past. My two cats at the time took great pleasure toppling my tiny tree spilling dirt everywhere. That was the last year I got a tree.

Christmas decorations are a minefield of hazards for my feline friends

The biggest offender, of course, is the Christmas tree. Both tinsel and garland pose quite a risk to young felines, curious to see what they taste like. More than one of my cats has chewed on a wire or two, so strings of lights are another hazard I try to minimize this time of year. And don’t even talk to me about poinsettias — those things are banned from my home as they are quite toxic to cats.

Sometimes, I miss having a tree. I’ve often contemplated finding the tallest tree my condo could bear and securing it to the ceiling and walls. Instead of pesky lights, I’d decorate it with catnip toys. My cats could climb it unencumbered. I’d hold tree races to see which cat made it to the summit first. That could make for an interesting evening. . I wonder how long the tree would stay upright. But alas, I think about the noise it would surely produce and how angry my neighbors would get.

For years I didn’t decorate at all for Christmas

I always missed it. I’d occasionally burn a pine-scented candle and hang up Christmas cards I’d received. Each year, I told myself this year would be different. I planned to invest in a tree and some cute decorations. Then I‘d get too busy with work or I’d forget.

One year, I purchased a little bird ornament that was dressed for winter. I liked it, so the next year I found another one. Buying these little snowbirds turned into my Christmas tradition. Each year, I buy a different bird. I’ve accumulated quite a collection. I put them out every year and there’s no rush to put them away once Christmas is over. Sometimes they hang out until spring. The best thing about the birds, they don’t break when one of my curious felines sends them plummeting to the floor. One or two cats has mistaken the birds for toys and have presented their “kills” to me.

This year with the pandemic, I decided to infuse my condo with a little more Christmas spirit than my birds could manage. With three cats, I didn’t think I should get a tree. I knew they would be a little too interested in climbing it. And I had visions of one of them toppling it and trapping another one underneath. Adding twinkly lights around my fireplace seemed like a fair compromise. I’ve positioned the strands so they remain out of reach to curious felines below. I placed some birds at the corners, so they look like they’re about to take flight.

Some nights, I light pine-scented candles. I only roll that dice when my cats have settled in for the evening. They are very curious, and a lit candle could bring burnt paws, singed whiskers, or a dreaded tail fire. None of those things I’d want to see happen. So I wait until they take their mid-evening naps before I light my candles.

When the lights are turned down low, my pine-scented candles are burning safely on a counter, and Bing Crosby’s is singing White Christmas, the spirit of the season consumes me and I don’t miss that Christmas tree at all.