Friday, December 01, 2006

Holiday CatBlogging

We bought our Christmas tree this week. I'm excited. I haven't, for one reason or another, put up a tree in 5-6 years. It used to be because I lived in Massachusetts and came home to Georgia for Christmas, so I wouldn't bother doing the tree up there. Then I moved back to Georgia and lived in an apartment, and there just wasn't enough room to do it. Last Christmas, we were in the process of buying a house. Now we finally have space and time, and will be home to enjoy it. I scouted the ads and we finally found a very pretty and sort of realistic looking pre-lit tree that was for sale at a massive discount and we bought it. Now there is only one potential problem: Moxy.

As you know, Moxy has a thing for boxes. She didn't waste any time nibbling on a corner of the big tree box and then laying claim to it. Here she is napping on it. No doubt she is dreaming of the countless hours of fun she'll have destroying this box little by little. Except we are planning on reusing the box to store the tree, so we had to put the kibosh on that idea.


The next potential problem is not knowing what a six month old kitten will do to the tree. Zima, who is an old lady cat, just ignores it. Moxy showed a lot of interest in it before we even took it out of the box. She was a pest while we were putting it together, and it didn't take her five minutes to extract a bulb from one of the lower lights. We're going to wait a few more days before making the tree a more attractive target. Step one is to make sure she won't knock it over. Step two is to make sure she isn't chewing on any of it. Step three will be to see what she'll do when there are ornaments to go after. I have some cat-friendly ones to put near the bottom, and I'll probably save some of the more delicate or antique ones for later (or maybe even next year).


She passed the first test. We came home from work and the tree was still standing. It didn't look like she'd messed with it while we were at work. She really likes hanging out underneath the tree when it is lit. But since the ten year warranty is not likely to include repair of cat damage, I'll pick up some Bitter Apple to spray on the lower branches to make it taste bad, just in case.

4 comments:

LL said...

Looks like it's Christmas around the fermicat household already.

Beth said...

My first cat, Mojo, destroyed our Christmas tree. We always get real, which is already a pain in the arse, but the cat literally toppled it and broke ornaments I could never replace (Baby's First Christmas -- both my son's and daughter's, etc.) We ended up using fishing line and wrapping it around the tree then nailing it into a corner of where the two walls met.

Mojo was killed by some crazy driver and now I just have Scully to worry about. Thankfully, he has no pep so just looks at the pretty lights. (we think he's a bit daft)

Here's hoping you're tree is merry, right, and upright for the season!

fermicat said...

The tree still isn't decorated. I don't really like to decorate for Christmas until December. I'll pull all that stuff out of the basement tomorrow sometime.

Kathleen said...

My Boris ADORES boxes. I got the air conditioner box out of the closet on Monday in preparation for finally getting the stupid thing out of the window and he had managed to finagle his way inside it within minutes. That boy cracks me up.