This weekend was spent preparing the house for Christmas. These are Jon's favorite three days of the year - seriously. This is usually a major stress point for me. It's a huge project, a big mess, takes much patience (on all parts). This year, I took a new approach ("go with the flow..." and lots of deep breathing) and I enjoyed the process so much more than I normally do. Which is not to say there weren't a few flash points. My fault. I'm still a control freak no matter how hard I try.
And so it's all good - until laying in bed this morning and hearing the loud crash. Jon was in the shower so I figured it wasn't him. Kate was still in bed - not her; Holli, snoring loudly on the floor beside me. That leaves one .....
See if you can piece together what happened by putting these pictures in their proper order.
Ornaments no longer on Christmas tree because tree was on the floor in a horizontal position.
Tree tilted against wall now until a more permanent stabilization method can be established.
Pine needles left on a recently clean floor.
Long lost favorite catnip mouse is found in one of the Christmas boxes and played with for hours. It makes him VERY frisky and wound up tighter than a cat on catnip.
"So what if I did climb up your damn tree. I am - a CAT! SpiderCat! SpiderCat! Does whatever a SpiderCat does....!"
Ornaments no longer on Christmas tree because tree was on the floor in a horizontal position.
Tree tilted against wall now until a more permanent stabilization method can be established.
Pine needles left on a recently clean floor.
16 comments:
I haven't had a tree for many, many years because of a cat who loved to climb them...however, I haven't had a cat for many, many years either.
I'm not sure what I'd prefer. Cat climbing/tipping the Christmas tree? Or puppy eating ornaments off the tree and pooping it out on my floor. I think I'll take the cat.
Oh no! I hope you didn't lose any really, really special ornaments. You might need an electric fence around that tree.
We tie a piece of fishing line around the tree and anchor it to a cup hook in the wall. I'm not sure if the cat has ever tried to climb the tree but I feel better knowing the 20 lb. test is holding it up.
Hehe :) I bet you won't leave that cat unattended with catnip again!! You're lucky - you only have one cat to get high and wreck trees. We have 5!!
Oh no! That's how I lost the angel with the shiny blue dress and china head that was atop the Christmas trees of my childhood. The tree was up off the floor because of babies, but it was not cat-proof. I hope your losses were minimal.
Spider Cat - tight on The Nip! I can see the headlines now!
We had a tippy tree a few years ago - I lost a boatload of glass ornaments.
Hee hee - I got Chaos at this time of year because my brother called and said if I wanted a living kitten, I needed to pick him up Right. Now. Apparently he taught his brother and mother to climb the Christmas tree that evening...
Anyway, bungee cords and cup hooks work really well, I'm told. :)
Now you've got me worried. Bert is about to see his first Christmas tree. I didn't put one up the last few years but I'm having multiple parties this year and there's just GOT to be a tree!
Oops. Aggie used to live in the tree from the moment it went up, until the second it went down. She was very careful to not knock it over.
Silly, silly cat. I hope nothing was broken!
I'm worried that one of our cats will knock over our tree once we put it up. Well, the cats or the kids - it's probably about an 80% likelihood that one or more of the above will take it down.
Our tree was cat-climbed and -tipped once when I was a kid. In my adult life we do 2 things to ensure the verticality of the tree in our cat- and dog-infested household. We hang bells on all the lower branches (Early Warning System) and tie a fishing line (= mostly invisible) from the top of the tree to a nearby curtain rod, picture hook, or whatever. So far, so good!
Wow. What a wakeup call. My cat thankfully like playing under the tree skirt and not climbing the actual tree. I imagine she'd be up it in a minute if we got a real tree though.
What is it about orange cats and trees? Mine almost tipped ours over, too!
I hope you didn't lose anything too valuable. I debated back and forth about putting the breakable ornaments up this year, and decided that with two new cats it was just not a good idea. So far, the tree's still up, but the new one year old cat may subscribe to the philosophy I saw on a Hallmark card last week:
Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree,
Your ornaments are history.
Wiring it up is definitely the way to go.
I don't think it would be christmas in blogland if there wasn't at least one downed tree by the family pet. I hope you didn't lose anything irreplaceable. We have an artificial tree and it is ammusing to see Hobbes try to figure out how to climb it. He's given that up and now tears around on the tree skirt. However, we've given up on putting bulbs on the tree because he can't resist batting them down to the ground and then all over the house at night.
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