Here's the tree a few days after the kitties discovered it. It got a lot worse before I redecorated it
Christmas Eve with the kitties banished to the basement for the night.
After we lost our cat, Stanley a little over a year ago I knew it wouldn’t be long before I got another kitten. Last spring I could wait no longer and made my desire for a kitten known on Facebook. A good friend of mine happened to be a reputable kitten breeder in the area so I was not surprised when she stated that she had kittens ready to be adopted. Tom, Sammy, and I headed over intending to take one kitten but after a convincing sales pitch, we found ourselves taking two adorable grey kittens home with us. Our last two cats were older when we got them, so we were surprised at the amount of chaos two rambunctious kittens could cause on a daily basis. I spent the summer unsuccessfully trying to keep them off of the counters and table. Knowing all too well what kind of damage cats can do to Christmas decorations, (specifically the tree), I secretly decided that I would put off putting up a tree until someone noticed that we didn’t have one, hopefully somewhere around December 24th, when it would be too late. In my dreams we would simply settle for a Christmas chair, covered with gifts on Christmas morning. There would be no broken ornaments or one of us arriving home to a tree on its side in the living room. When our older son Robby announced his plans to venture out into the world I realized that next Christmas may only be three of us so of course the tree had to go up. I had to put aside my aggravation at coming home every evening with more ornaments scattered on the floor, branches dislodged, and lights tugged ½ way down the tree. Even in my threats to take it down, I knew that for my family, I would keep it up even with only the top 3rd decorated. I had to remind myself that the tree was an important part of my kids’ lives and as I look at one of them possibly leaving home in the near future I could quietly fill the bowl on the table with ornaments reminding myself that this will be one of those Christmases that we will talk about years from now. When Christmas is behind us, I will pack away the memories of those goofy cats un-decorating the tree and remind myself that it really didn’t matter what the tree looked like after all.
