Meowy Christmas!

Meowy Christmas!

by

Christine Phillips

December 7, 2011

            The holiday season is upon us, with Christmas fast approaching. The halls have been decked with boughs of holly. This is already proving to be a very interesting, and somewhat frustrating, Christmas for us. We have seven cats in our house: four adults and three kittens. The Christmas tree, with all of its garland, ornaments, and jingling bells, doubles as a climbing apparatus for the kittens (Link, eight months, and Bear and his sister Frisky, five months). The older cats (Joel, eleven years, and Pookie, eight years) know better. They just lie around and watch the young-uns get into trouble. I can imagine them exchanging winks and knowing glances because they know what’s in store for the kittens. They’ve already been through this phase, and now Christmas decorations are old hat to them. My mother’s cat, Sweetie (who just happens to be Pookie’s mother) is just as indifferent about the holidays as Pookie and Joel are. She rarely leaves Mom’s bedroom because Joel always chases her back into it. Missy, the mother of Bear and Frisky, is oblivious as well. She’s recuperating from being spayed yesterday, and is content to lie in her bed in my bathroom. Frisky, our little ankle-polisher, was spayed yesterday, too. She’s not feeling very frisky today, but still likes to see what she can get into.

            Alerted by the sound of bells jingling on the tree, we know Link and Bear are climbing it again. They see us coming with a squirt bottle in hand, and make haste to escape. Invariably, a glass ornament loses its precarious grasp on its branch and falls, splintering into many little slivers when it hits the hearth next to the tree. Even if the ornaments are placed up high on the tree, they’re going to be shaken off their branches and get broken. Why do we have glass ornaments on the tree this year when we know the kittens will be tempted to climb it? Ask our chief decorator, who happens to be my daughter. I warned her that this would happen, but my warning went unheeded. Oh, well. We’ll have an excuse to buy new ornaments next year.

            As for Christmas presents, we learned a long time ago to wait until Christmas Eve or early Christmas morning to put them under the tree. The cats like to shred the wrapping paper before we can get to them. And if they decide their litter boxes are unsatisfactory, the Christmas presents under the tree will make a very nice substitute.  As you can imagine, that kind of takes the excitement out of unwrapping our presents.

            Is it silly to buy Christmas presents for your pets? Or hang up stockings for them? Many pet-owners would shout a resounding “no” to these questions. They love their pets like family, so why shouldn’t they give them presents and hang up their stockings? We never used to do it, but that changed a few years ago when my daughter decided the cats should be included. So every Christmas since then the cats’ stockings have been stuffed with new catnip-filled toys and pouches of treats. I don’t know whether the cats know what’s going on, but they sure have fun with their new toys. They can do the funniest things when they’re high on catnip.

            ‘Tis the season to be jolly…oops, I’d better go rescue the tree again! Bear and Link had better enjoy it while they can. Next week they’re getting neutered. Then the tree will be safe for a few days while they recuperate.

            Enjoy the picture my daughter drew last year, using my favorite ornament as a model.