I grew up in a home where Christmastime was always a big deal. My parents decorated the house from the inside out. We always went out and cut down a live Christmas tree to decorate with all kinds of ornaments we had collected. My mom’s nutcracker collection was put on display along with a complete nativity scene and Santa figurines in all varieties. And that is still the way their house is today.
But now that I don’t live there it’s up to me to make my home feel like Christmas. The difference for me is that I have 4 furry kids to contend with.
Piper grew up among all the Christmas fun at my parent’s house and generally wasn’t interested in any of it, except for the tree. We had to try and keep the ornaments off the bottom branches so that the furry princess wouldn’t be tempted to bat them off. Occasionally she would manage to get a prize but mostly she just liked laying under the tree.
When I moved into my apartment with Piper we just got a fake tree and some cheap decorations. I couldn’t afford anything fancy and the fake tree was easier to deal with on my own. Piper didn’t care because she still had a tree to lay under.
The fake tree moved with us to the condo and Ares was still a baby for our first Christmas in the new place. I collected some more decorations without a second thought to make my new home feel festive for our first holiday season. I even piled all the presents under the tree without any worries of them being destroyed by furbabies.
Last Christmas we had 2 new family members, Chaos and Little O. Not only had I discovered the rowdy play that accompanies multiple young furballs and subsequent jostling of furniture, I knew that the tree could seem like a great new playground for a 6 month old kitten. I was actually kind of glad that the fake tree was looking like it wouldn’t make it to see another Christmas in case something did happen.
As always I made sure to keep ornaments off low hanging branches and keep other tree décor to a minimum so as not to entice our new kitten. I also kept in mind the possibility of things getting bumped into and knocked over when I decorated the rest of the rooms. Anything breakable needed to be high up and as far from the edge of the shelf or table as possible. I also did not use anything that would dangle within reach of a jumping dog or curious, pouncing cat.
The funny thing is, with all the considerations I made to try and ensure our holiday décor would stay put, neither the cats or dogs gave a hoot about any of it. The only incident was actually quite hilarious. I had all the presents wrapped and ready to be loaded in the car in the living room. They weren’t there for long and when I was figuring out how to get them all in the car and I didn’t notice anything amiss as I carrying them. It was when I had brought them into my parent’s house that I realized all the bows and ribbons were gone. The best part is that there weren’t any tears or scratches in the paper. That Little O was a sneaky boy. I later found the stash in his “lair” and couldn’t help but giggle.
So this year with the fake tree done for I was ready for Chris and I to go chop down our very ouw live tree like I used to do as a kid. Okay, okay, I was ready for Chris to go chop down our tree and I would supervise. On the Sunday after Thanksgiving we headed out to a tree farm and started our search through the many rows of possible Christmas trees. I may have been a little bit picky and a little bit indecisive but finally I told Chris I had found out tree. And then I did nothing whatsoever to help get it from the lot to our living room besides offer apparently unhelpful suggestions and ask how much longer it would take.
Finally the tree was in the stand and ready to decorate later that evening. I was a little paranoid about the furballs being able to access the tree water because I know it can be poisonous for them to ingest. But I didn’t need to worry because not only would it be nearly impossible for them to get to the water, they were completely uninterested in the tree in general. At least I thought they were.
The next day Chris put the lights on before he went to work so that I could put up the ornaments that evening. I came home to find the entire strand of lights snaked around the coffee table but not a perpetrator in sight. I can’t say for sure but my bet is on Little O. Your guess is as good as mine how he managed to get all the lights off in a single strand without harming the tree in any way. Houdini cat.
I put the lights back up and decorated the tree and the rest of the house and 3 weeks later we’ve had only 1 ornament casualty. The dogs love laying underneath the tree, especially when they lights are on at night. We even moved their beds so that they can enjoy the tree while they lounge. They cats seem to thoroughly enjoy their front row spot from their cat tree which sits in the corner right by the tree.
We have been lucky that neither cat has attempted to scale the tree , our dogs haven’t tried to eat the branches or knock it over and all the furbabies seem to respect the rest of the decorations. Maybe they are just super impressed with the new décor I put together this year. I think next year I might even get brave and put some fancy trimmings on our tree!
Do you take special precautions when decorating with furballs in the house? What crazy things have your pets done during the holidays?
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