2025, animals, holidays, home, Uncategorized

Christmas And Pets

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As you can see from the photos below, our cat has claimed the Christmas tree for her own. Ever since we put it up she has been sleeping under it and drinking the tasty water in the tree holder. She walks around it as though she owns it.

This is first Christmas tree we have had for about three years. Other years we were traveling to Brookings and didn’t want to have a fully decorated tree sitting around unattended for days. Luna the tabby has been known to to climb the tree and/or knock down and play with ornaments. She also chewed the straw beards off the Julebukke. I am happy to report that the dog has ignored the tree entirely. Our previous Welsh Terriers were famous for unwrapping presents and stealing ornaments.

We bought the current Frasier fir at the local farm store. It is fairly small. We put a string of lights on it, and plan to decorate it today. We shall see if Kyrill can resist plucking ornaments off the tree. This is a pretty low key holiday for us even with the tree. Best friend is coming down. This is the first Christmas in decades we aren’t doing any Christmas music in church. We will celebrate with our son and his family January 3rd. His cat and dog leave their tree alone. Luna will probably give us heck for taking down the tree after Christmas. It is her tree, after all.

How have your pets treated your Christmas tree, decorations, and presents? Do your pets have Christmas stockings?

24 thoughts on “Christmas And Pets”

  1. The first Christmas we had our current cat (Sofie), she ate something (no idea what) from the tree we’d just brought in from the local lot, got very sick, ended-up in the vet hospital for 2 days, and has shown zero interest in Christmas trees in the years since. She will pose to have a “cute Xmas” photo of her taken under one but after that the tree is dead to her. 🎄🙄

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      2. An NDSU researcher tried to train coyotes to eschew sheep and cattle by lacing carcasses with a poison that would just make the coyotes sick to their stomachs. He claimed success, but then was accused of cooking his data

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  2. Our first cat, Corfu, decided one year she was going to climb to the top of our 7-feet tall Christmas tree. She didn’t quite make it but managed to tip the tree over. For the rest of her time with us, we had to secure the tree to the wall with fishing line so she couldn’t knock it over. If I remember, the good news about that was we hadn’t decorated the tree yet so no ornaments were broken.

    Calvin and Patty liked to play with ornaments, so we soon learned to put the unbreakables on the low branches.

    Iris only has the tiny ornaments on our 2-feet high tree on the table in the front window. We’ve found a few on the floor, but I haven’t seen any lately so I think she’s bored with them.

    Our first three cats loved playing with discarded wrapping paper from opened presents. But since we don’t exchange gifts anymore, Iris will never have that joy. This will be her first Christmas with us, and the way we celebrate (barely at all with decorations, gifts, etc.), it’ll be just another day for her.

    Merry Christmas to all.

    Chris in Owatonna

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  3. My various pets over the years have been all over the board. One popcorn string eating dog, one dog that needed a large Christmas wrapped box barrier to keep away from the tree, one cat that continually climbed the tree, (which is why there are no Ukrainian eggs on the tree to this day), the dog that ate a wrapped package of bath salts from under the tree(which is why we don’t put gifts under the tree until right before time to open them )and various others that just ignored the tree entirely.

    All the pets have stockings. When my sister and I were little, we got handmade stockings from a family friend with our names knitted into them; you’ve probably seen these kind – with the Santa and the jingle bell. Then when my baby sister came along my mother re-knitted all of them so that sister would have a matching one, and then as grandchildren came along, they got them and pets as well. Nimue was the last pet to get a stocking knitted by my mother. When Guinevere came around, I found a friend who knitted and asked her to make one..

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  5. I don’t have much family anymore, and what family I do have hasn’t exchanged gifts in years. Occasionally I have a few small gifts under the tree, but not this year. I gave my 6’ Christmas tree away to a school classroom. Now I have one of those pre-lit birch trees up on a table, and a 3’ pre-lit tree – also up on a table. I wanted the birch tree on the floor in a corner, but Maggie kept biting at its branches, so I had to move it. It’s mostly just the lights I like. This time of year is so dark. I have a few hand-made ornaments on the 3’ tree, and a few on the fireplace mantel. Otherwise I didn’t do much decorating. I do less and less every year. I don’t want to stop completely because there are some lovely ornaments that were my Mom’s. They were hand-painted by her friend, Kate, who has also passed away. They’re really charming and lovely and I love them and the memories they carry.

    Maggie is truly a terror right now. She is into everything! She’s very active and growing fast. I think she has two hollow legs because I can’t seem to feed her enough. She is ravenously hungry, and she thinks most foreign objects are food. One terrible habit she has developed is finding an edge of carpeting, biting at it, and then pulling it out. I tried lemon juice and white vinegar mixed in a spray bottle and sprayed on some areas. That didn’t work, so I added some Tabasco sauce, but that leaves a stain and doesn’t really help. We will get through this puppy stage! We will get through it! There is new carpeting in our future.

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  6. Rise and Eat the Tinsel, Baboons,

    I have told you before about the cat, Felini, who ate the tinsel off the tree, which then produced a festive litter box. Dogs have eaten the paper off the gifts, knocked the balls off tree. A kitten climbed the tree which we then nailed into the wall temporarily. McGee has discovered Christmas bells on our tiny tree which he enthusiastically and JOYFULLY knocks around the living room. The animals do not have stockings, but they do get extra treats.

    We have happily pared gift-giving down to the bare minimum.

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  7. We did have little stockings for Slushball and Charlie. I’m sure I remember Charlie as a kitten climbing when we still had a real tree, and I don’t remember now what we did about that!
    I think I do remember a bell being batted around on the floor…

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  8. We are finally going to put up the tree today. Our new kitty climbs everything, and we haven’t been excited about the prospect of a tipped tree spilling water all over the carpet. It’s been sitting out on the deck for several weeks, and she climbs it when she goes outside, so we’re not optimistic about her leaving it alone in the house. We’ll add lights but no ornaments.

    We’ve always had cats and kittens, but never significant problems with cats and Christmas trees. Most of them have liked having a new hiding place/nap spot; a couple of them drank water from the stand but didn’t seem to suffer for it. This year is very different.

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  9. My daughter’s two cats have climbed into the tree and done some damage over the years. But soon after they put up their new thickly branched narrow tree, their son came home. He is much more appealing to their smaller cat than the tree. Then their daughter came home and big cat adores her and lost interest in the tree. My daughter has a collection of exquisite glass ornaments she does not dare hang.
    OT. Went to eye dr. Today. My bad vision in my right eye is unfixable. She cannot see the cause so it is farther back, behind the eye. She suspects a mini stroke right behind the eye. She has ordered an MRI. My weird event two weeks ago may have been a stroke which left no damage.
    Clyde

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    2. You have certainly been through a lot, Clyde. I’m glad you’re getting a proper diagnosis, and I hope the eye damage can heal with a little time and calm.

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    3. life is hard then you die is the way it feels some times clyde. i hope the eye situation is managable. glad the mini stroke weird event left no damage. you do well considering.
      life was hard with sandra now you get to deal with you. hopefully you can find the best way to deal with your health and its challanges. sounds like youre doing all that you can. glad your daughter and mr tuxedo are around to cheer you up

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  11. Humphrey’s tail is the biggest threat to our tree.
    And Luna did try to drink from the stand the first night. I called her and she backed off.

    No stockings for the dogs.

    I miss the warm barn and the cows in Christmas Eve. I’d give them all a scratch on the head and tell them Merry Christmas.
    A warm barn is a nice place to be on a winter night.

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  13. most ornaments destroyed by pets and kids over the years. debbie just pulled out boxes of exquisite ornaments i got years ago and shecrefused to put out with critters and little kids to destroy them. she has the grand chikdren to touch only with your eyes. im amazed. they love the ornaments snd only look. i would have lost a dollar on that one. had christmas eve fondue tonight and off to see what santa brought to little ones in the am so off to bed now merry christmas baboons
    and to all a good night

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