Silent Night

As I sit here looking at the tree, I can’t help but laugh. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful tree – from the knees up it’s full of ornaments and lights; but from the knees down, well, it’s bare. There are strands of lights which have already been pulled askew, but not an ornament in sight. I’m many things, but stupid is not one of them. I have cats. Four of them. I like my ornaments, thank you. Many of them are Hallmark (insert copyright symbol here) mischievous kittens series, some “It’s a Wonderful Life”, and a couple of Thomas Kinkaid lovelies. Each one is precious to me, some more than others, and I’m not about to expose them to the destructive claws of my furbabies. I love them too, but short of using furry handcuffs (on them, not me), there’s not much I can do about it. They rarely do it in front of me but rather wait until the middle of the night to wreak their hairball havoc. I have an artificial tree and the limbs pull out easily to be happily strewn across the floor where I step on them in the morning. And they hurt. Like hell. Aidan is the most blatant offender, followed quite happily if not clumsily by Bubba. But then Aidan will eat anything: silk flowers, garbage bags, plants, etc. so what’s an artificial Christmas tree or two? Ribbons and bows on presents? That went out with the cavecat. They don’t bother the wrapping paper, no fun in that. But Neely Shae loves tags and ribbons, my own personal shredder. BooBear is the only one who seems to leave the tree alone, with only a sniff or two. But I know better, he’s a cat. And he has plans for that tree.