Our Christmas Tree Saga

Earlier this month we had a wonderful little holiday party, complete with mulled cider, at which we put up our Christmas tree. It was a very normal used pre-lit tree, given to me by my parents, which we used last year as well. I decorated it in golds’ silvers, and reds and used some beautiful little fruit and candy ornaments I got very cheap last year.

We all marveled at such a cute sight.

Immediately the cats were, as cats are when it comes to anything new, perplexed and awed. Maybe it’s some weird nature thing, but they both immediately climbed the tree. Chowder didn’t get very high and didn’t stay very long because he’s gotten so much bigger since last Christmas and that little tree obviously couldn’t support all of his almost 20 lbs. Maxine, however, climbed straight to the top and spent a lot of time sitting and sleeping and sniffing ornaments. At one point Kirby said, “It would really suck if she got hung on those lights.”

Next to one of my favorite pomegranate ornaments.

Fast forward a little bit to the next morning.  Kyle and I are sitting on the sofa watching The Simpsons or something, and we hear an awful scream coming from Maxine in the dining room.  We rush in to find that one of her back feet is somehow entwined in the lights, like, for real.  The more we try to help her get loose the more scared she gets, the more she bites at and fights us.  Finally I realize the only way we’re going get her out is to cut the lights, so I find a pair of scissors and cut the lights.  After making checking/loving on Maxine, Kyle and I promptly take down the tree.  It stayed up less than 24 hours.  All of this occurred in the midst of finals week at school and a really bad ear infection (me, of course) which required a doctor’s visit, antibiotics, and a lot of time sleeping on the couch.  I used my convalescence to brainstorm up a new kind of tree that wouldn’t be too much work to put together (because of the finals, the sickness, etc.), wouldn’t cost too much, wouldn’t take up too much space, and would be relatively environmentally friendly.  In the meantime, I was searching for a way to keep Chowder from doing his business in a plant I’ve had almost four years and was about to bring inside to keep it from freezing.  Then it hit me!

It's non-tradidional to say the least.

We went from a very traditional tree to an incredibly non-traditional one.  I covered all the dirt in the pot with pine cones, which has done a great job keeping Chowder from digging in the plant (he still nips at the leaves sometimes, but that’s probably my fault for not having some cat grass for him to chew on).  I got the stockings for $1 each at Old Navy, and I plan to put our names on them sometime between now and next year.  I stocked up on natural wood stars last year after Christmas, so I pulled those out and painted them with acrylic paint (which I also already had) to match the stockings. Our gifts were wrapped in newspaper with teal gift tags shaped like woodland creatures (bear, moose, sparrows, squirrels, etc.) and red pearlized wraphia–the newspaper was, of course, free, and I made the tags for free at work, so I only ended up paying $4 for the wraphia, which my boss kindly ordered for me.

The total package!

Overall, I’d say Christmas was a success!  I exchanged my last few gifts with friends last night, and I’m very happy to report that everyone seems really happy with their terrariums, rice packs, and various other DIY goodies.  Furthermore, I got a lot of really cool and useful things (namely, a lot of Method cleaning products, the new Mac Magic Mouse, and an iPhone), plus some a lot of very comfy jammies, sheets, etc. that will likely drive my productivity way down.

These decorations should be easy enough to pack up and put away, and I still have a solution to keep Chowder from using my plant as a litter box.  Yeah!

Related Posts:

• Homemade Holidays: Wreath Roundup
• Homemade Holidays: Terrarriums
• I think Chowder is stingy.
• Wednesday morning peepin’.
• My Sister Takes Great Pictures of my Cats…

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