O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, How Tempting Are Thy Branches... and Ornaments... and Lights

The war over the family Christmas tree has begun. I recently made the mistake of remarking to someone that my cats don't really bother my tree too much and that I've never really had a problem.

This is so not true. I seem to suffer from some freakish form of amnesia that makes me say this same thing year after year when this is completely not the case. I think I like to block it from my mind and make my cats seem angelic or perhaps better than the average housecat. Or maybe I don't want to think about my gorgeous tree with its pink lights and girly ornaments being savaged by naughty little felines.

My domesticated cherubs hear the irresistible call of the wild twice a year. It happens in the springtime when the windows are first opened and the birds and bunnies are out in plain view. They run from room to room, sitting in each windowsill making these strange, almost primal noises (I assume they are fantasizing about catching said birds and bunnies and feasting on them) and running headfirst into the screens when the urge to maim and kill overcomes them (this slight head trauma usually brings them back to reality for the remainder of the season).

All is well after that until the Christmas tree goes up in late November. Like I said, I told someone that my cats don't mess around with my artificial 7 foot tall beauty. False, false, FALSE. From the moment I brought the box down from upstairs last Sunday, my cats have been on high alert. They immediately starting sniffing the branches I had strewn around while simultaneously trying NOT to look too interested but I knew damn well that by the end of the night one of them would be going all Cliffhanger on me and climbing that tree.

I'm not sure which one was up in the branches when I woke up around 4 a.m. to use the bathroom that next morning but I could hear the whole tree shaking. I was too tired to do anything more than yell in a half-assed manner (which the culprit completely ignored, by the way) but I have my suspicions as to who it was.

Who it probably WASN'T: This guy. This is Binxy, and this is a photo of Binxy doing what he does best. His other favorite pasttimes are eating and hiding from everything. The only time he comes out is when he needs his food freshened (that's right, freshened. He doesn't like it when food sits in his bowl too long so I have to add fresh food and mix it up) or when he decides I should pet him, which happens about once a week. Otherwise he doesn't bother anyone and prefers to live a hermit-like existence in the basement or spare room. He simply can't be bothered with activities that thin, active cats partake in, such as trying to destroy the household Christmas tree.


As far as I know, the only thing that can entice Binxy to exert any energy (besides hearing me shake the bag of cat food) is if there is a box laying around that is way too small for his portly body. Then he's all up in it.

Lily didn't worry me too much this year because she is still wearing The Dreaded Cone. Or she was. I saw her try to take a running leap into the tree branches the other night, only to be snapped backwards because her cone wouldn't fit. (As a brief history, Lily intermittently has to wear the cone because of an injury she had when I initially found her. She has very sensitive skin on her face and sometimes scratches it too much, causing it to bleed.)

However, I came home yesterday to find The Dreaded Cone on the ground and Lily was MIA. She's like a little cat Houdini the way she can wriggle out of that thing and disappear into thin air (she seems to realize that once I catch her the cone has to go back on). If Lily is going to fuck my tree up, it'll be at night or when I'm not here. And it'll be out of spite, a revenge killing of my tree for making her wear that cone.






This brings us to Kenni and Meredith.

Meredith is kind of the wild card. At nine, she is the oldest cat in the house which means she spends most of her time hissing at everyone else and laying in my lap. Or in the sink (hey, she prefers FRESH water). However, she has taken an open interest in the tree this year and as I lay on the floor typing this post she is lurking under it, probably reverting back to her kitten days and plotting which ornaments to knock down and drag off into oblivion.


Then there's Kenni, my little crackhead kitty. Kenni has been a maniac from the time she was a wee little kitten, so if anyone is going to completely annhilate the Christmas tree this year it will be her. While I was putting ornaments on earlier, she was laying on the table next to the tree and blatantly swatting at anything in her reach, not even caring that I was right there scolding her. When I tried to brush her off the table and away from the tree, she bit me.

A video should honestly be done about Kenni in the style of the Honey Badger. I can hear Randall the Narrator's voice now: "Crackhead Kitty don't care. Look at her! Crackhead Kitty takes what she wants. So nasty! Oh look, she's chasing things and eating them."

(Maybe Kenni and Meredith are secretly mad at me for giving them fucked up names. In my defense, and as I have tried to explain to them time and time again, I was NOT responsible for naming them. Both were named by exes, I had zero to do with it.)

A whole branch was pulled out of the center pole this evening. No one would confess.

You know who DIDN'T do it? My best buddy Joe! He loves Christmas and his mama!

I give my tree two weeks, tops. I can already envision myself coming home from work to find it tipped over and all cats off in hiding except Kenni, who will likely be sitting on top of it looking pleased with herself. I am going to attempt to weight it down at the base but I think this will only make it more of a challenge for them. Either that or they'll get bored and someone will pee on it.

This is Christmas in the Miles house! Never a dull moment when you have a cat menagerie.