Our Christmas Tree - a Lifetime of Feline Compromise

I have always lived with cats and the Christmas tree has always been a challenge. Our cats are intelligent creatures and they enjoy the change that the Christmas tree brings. The trick is to compromise enough that nothing is destroyed. Remember it isn't a job, it is for fun.

When I was a child I remember having cats that ate tinsel. Today I know it isn't good for them. The tinsel then was especially dangerous, since at that time we reused our tinsel and some of it was made from lead. There has always been the danger of broken ornaments. They happen. The important thing is to clean them up quickly.

When I decorated my first tree, away from my parent's, I hung a small artificial tree from the ceiling. It wasn't very heavy, but I have no memory of how we managed to make it stay on the ceiling. It hung temptingly out of reach of the cats I had at the time. I decorated it with small brightly colored artificial birds and white feathered doves, as well as colorful, thread wrapped, balls. I still have some of the birds forty years later. For several years we put one of those little birds in a bird's nest on our tree. The nest was found in a real tree one year and we saved it for good luck. We kept it in a box and put it high in the tree each year. The cats never seemed to notice it.

With years of experience in cat proofing the Christmas tree, we have found certain things that seem to work. The bobbin lace garland and the fragile ornaments that I care about go near the top branches. When we hang the ornaments we wrap the hook very securely around the branch. At the bottom of the tree go the small cardboard cats, the cloth ornaments, and other unbreakable ornaments.

As your eye goes up our tree you will notice that the nicer the ornament, the higher it is on the tree. This is important because one or two of our cats think that the lower branches are a kind of toy shopping experience. Of course their belief in this toy store only encourages us to tempt them by hanging ornaments that they enjoy. There are two drawbacks to this. Every morning we seem to have to gather up a few ornaments and hang them back on the tree. There is also the joy of waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of small things being batted around.

Because tinsel could cause a sudden trip to the veterinarian, we have found some visual substitutes. I have several strings of small silver beads. That provides the shimmer that we used to get from tinsel with the extra advantage of adding a place to hang light weight ornaments. I also use 1 inch wide silver ribbon tied in bows with long tails. That provides the vertical lines that tinsel provided. I hang those near the top and let the tails stream down to just out of easy cat reach.

Some cats like to chew on electrical wire. Lately we have avoided that problem with an artificial pre-lit tree. We use a special cord that has a switch to turn the tree on and off. We are lucky in that our cats don't seem to be interested in the cord. Maybe it is all the toys in their "store."

By using an artificial tree we avoid the problem of having to water a tree and the worry of the cats drinking the water out of the tree stand. It is really bad for them. If I want piney smell I buy fresh garland and hang it around the top of the windows, out of cat reach.

There is one more danger with the Christmas tree and the cats. That is the knocking over of the tree. I learned everything from experience. And we keep an eye on things while we decorate the tree in the center of the room. Then we push it up next to the windows where it will sit. Underneath the window ledge are two hooks. We have a piece of rope that goes from one hook, around the center of the tree at the trunk, to the other hook. Somehow this rope kind of blends into the decorations and is invisible, although it isn't any special color.

I think maybe the cats enjoy the tree as much as we do. Maybe my experience will be useful to you.