Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

How lovely are your needles all over my carpet and all though out my house…?

I got the big tree decorated and it only took me half an hour of trying not to, to break one of the ornaments. I don’t even have that many breakable ornaments! The kitty has been around for years now and even he hasn’t managed to break any in all that time and it takes me a half an hour to shatter one. It’s the damn hard wood floor, wall to wall is more tree trimming friendly. Alert O’Reilly! Hard wood floors are anti-Christmas!

My goal was to have a cat proof tree and I have been relatively successful with that: I should have gone for a Diana proof tree grumble, grumble as part of the cat proofing I have trained myself not to decorate the lower third of the tree and I keep what glass ornaments I have managed to not break, up and out of the way; after a while you don’t even notice that there is a sizable amount of bare tree. It’s not lit, it’s not decorated so it’s just dark and for the most part, invisible. It has worked well for Kitty and I.

Except, except for one year in the apartment when Kitty tipped over the table top tree I was using and then it got ugly. Kitty is now the only cat in the world that fears heights. Don’t tip my tree over, that’s all I have to say on that.

Most of what I put on the tree is plastic or wood or fabric anyway, mostly because of The Kitty but also because storage is easier with the non breakables. It was a something I did intentionally, and because I got a boat load of plastic ornaments dirt cheap and for a few years they were all I had.

A few years ago I got really tired of all the spheres plastic and otherwise on the tree and made an effort to move to different shapes and textures. There probably is a limit on how many happy meal toys that should be repurposed into Christmas ornaments but you know, you do what you have to do. One in year in college I used spools of thread from a sewing kit as ornaments and they were the right size for the tree and they worked out well. Almost anything can be an ornament if you want it to be.

The small tree in the office window is still undecorated but it is a pre-lit tree and I really do not see that it needs to be decked too. It’s only there for decorative reasons anyway and I don’t want Dogger to see it as interesting. This is the first year she is really in the same room with it round the clock, I was trying to think what I had used in years past to keep her away from it and I was coming up dry. Then I remembered: she was crated in years past and I didn’t need anything else to keep her from bothering it. Those were the days. The days before she ate her bed. Twice

This last time I was late coming home from work! Bad Diana! Dogger showed her displeasure by eating the other half of her bed and this time she meant business – she tore the elastic out of the mattress pad rendering it trash. So Dogger is officially and permanently sleeping on the floor. If she had a dog house she would be in it. The last time she tried to eat the bed and I took it away to I don’t know, “show her” she learned how avoid the floor by (she has to sleep on the padded floor! Oh no!! alert PETA! Notify the SPCA) figuring out how climb into the chair that also lives in that room. She doesn’t look comfortable when she’s up there but I guess she thinks it’s better than the alternative.