Lily
Holiday time can be exciting in a household with cats. We put our Christmas tree up a couple of nights ago. Lily thinks we brought it in expressly for her playtime pleasure. Sophie views it as another great hideout. Max is in denial that it even exists. The intrusion of a tree laden with colorful doodads that jangle and twinkle is way too much for him to deal with.
This is also a time to be super careful. We can’t use raffia, curly ribbon and of course, tinsel in Sophie’s world. She’ll eat it. She already survived swallowing a piece of ribbon from our granddaughter’s pony tail once. We (and she) were lucky. It went clear through her before we knew she’d ingested it.
I still don’t know whether poinsettias are poisonous to cats. Some say yes, some say no. So all poinsettia plants that come around this house, must be displayed outside. I have one fake poinsettia I use inside.
We don’t use angle hair to decorate with. We now set up an artificial tree, so there’s no worry about using preservative chemicals in the tree water.
We are mindful of gift bags and plastic bags with handles. Some years ago, Winfield kitty got snoopy and ended up with his head caught in the handle of a gift bag. We found out about it when we observed the white kitten tearing through the living room closely followed by a gift bag. We caught up with Winfield and his attacker in the bedroom under the bed and released the kitten from the blue monster bag.
I still haven’t figured out how to keep the cats from opening their own gifts. If catnip is involved, they sniff it out and open it up before Christmas morning. At least this keeps them away from the other gifts.
We’ve never had cats knock over a tree. We’ve been lucky there. However, just last night, Lily was examining a very interesting ornament and somehow got tangled in the string of lights. Suddenly, we saw the tree spinning around in the stand. No worries. The tree and the kitty came out okay.
If someone on your holiday list enjoys reading mysteries involving cats on their Kindles, be sure to gift them copies of Catnapped and Cat-Eye Witness (author, Patricia Fry). They are $2.99 each at Amazon—for Kindle only.
