The first day after we put up our tree, we came home to find our tree on the floor with several shattered ornaments on the floor underneath it. Our 6 month old kitten, Parris meowed at us from a safe distance away. We stood our tree up and cleaned up the mess.

That night we heard, “thump, shatter, meow!” We got up to investigate and found the tree pinning Parris to the ground, he had clearly tried to climb it (again!). We figured Parris had learned his lesson, so we again cleaned up our broken ornaments and stood the tree back up.

Two days later, we came home to find the tree halfway across the living room and pretty much every ornament was destroyed, including the ones my daughter and I had made. We cried then, knowing Christmas was either going to lack a tree or a cat, so we gave up on the tree.

The following year, we outsmarted the cat by making our own tree out of three pieces of green posterboard, with masking tape holding them together at the back. We taped the tree to the wall and then sat down with construction paper and made ornaments and even a string of lights (strips of green construction paper with multi-colored construction paper bulbs, with ink making them look lit-up) that was do detailed, there were even a couple “burnt-out bulbs.”

We had a great time making our tree together and at the end of the season, we took pictures of the tree (later captioned, “knock this one down, Parris!”), then cut out our favorite ornaments, which we save and sometimes reattach to future trees. We have a few ornaments that are very 3-D with all the tree bits attached to them. We recycle the rest of the tree and make a new one every year, while we sip eggnog and listen to Christmas music. 🙂

And fantastapotamus would be part of my vocabulary now if I wouldn’t stutter all over it. >_<