My cat is ruining our Christmas tree. After several casualties and a risky Rudolph rescue mission, he may be unstoppable. A force stronger than the Christmas spirit has taken hold of what was once a marginally troublesome house cat, but in the grand scheme of potential holiday disasters, it's probably par for the course.
After three Christmases with Rorschach - who's known almost exclusively as "the kitty" in our household - I thought I'd seen the height of his Grinchery. During holiday seasons past, it wasn't unusual to come home to a few fallen ornaments and some minor signs of tree disturbance, but we never experienced a full-on fir felony until this year. Since putting up the tree, coming home after leaving the pets alone for any length of time is wrought with excitement and dread every step we take from the car to the door not knowing what holiday havoc awaits. It's like when you get invited somewhere on your birthday and sense that a surprise party is waiting, but instead of people wearing party hats yelling "Surprise!" we're met with the shards of cherished ornaments and bent tree branches.
I'm no stranger to cats' fascination with Christmas trees or their general thirst for destruction. I know they love plunging whiskers-first into the vulnerable, artificial branches, dismantling ribbon and batting ornaments to their doom. I've discovered that in addition to having nine lives and always landing on their feet, cats also have an uncanny instinct for destroying only your cutest, favorite ornaments. It goes without saying that felines have a penchant for passive evildoing (leave a pen near the edge of the counter around a cat to test this theory), but this year the tree was my Alamo and I wasn't letting it go down without a fight.
You see, this was the first year I wanted to Pinterest the Christmas tree. In the past, I've opted for the classic technique: connect the lights and hope nothing went haywire during 11 months spent in storage, mummify the tree in garland, and apply ornaments liberally. But this year I wanted to take it to the next level, and so in a moment of merry masochism I went to Pinterest and typed "Christmas Tree Decor," and that's when I came across this striking criss-cross ribbon technique.
From the moment I saw it I was ruined. I knew that all the hot chocolate and tender holiday traditions wouldn't mean a thing if you're not here with me I couldn't incorporate that ribbon effect in my tree aesthetic. Like all my Pinterest endeavors, it went terribly, made me emotional, and left my my boyfriend reassuring me to no avail and treading lightly around the apartment as if one false move might plunge me deeper into Pinterest pessimism.
"It looks great!" he coaxed. "I don't know what else you want it to look like."
The short answer? Not like this:
I shot him a look so menacing that it was clear if he said anything else, he'd suffer a fate worse than the chestnuts. After calming down some, we stripped the tree and completely redid the ribbon using a new technique of Mike's design that was infinitely more effective than the Pinterest method. Once complete, the tree was magnificent. Against the lights, the red ribbon glowed, like the tree was the circulatory system pumping Christmas cheer into the entire space.
If I were insane - which admittedly hasn't been irrefutably disproven - I would say that Rory knew the tree was different this year. Maybe he was even drawn to it. Moths are drawn to flame, cats are drawn to meticulously decorated Christmas trees. Maybe he's just gotten bolder with age, or perhaps Pinterest has poisoned my mind and I just care more about any and all decoration indiscretions this year. Whatever the case may be, I was not prepared to find this scene waiting for me the first day Rory spent alone with the tree:
I thought maybe this year he'd have grown out of it, or that he'd sense that I was being psycho about the tree, but no. He went right for the ribbon, and that was only the beginning...
I was shocked, but not everyone understood the gravitas of the atrocity...
Most of the victims made it out with minor injuries (missing hooks, surface scratches) but some were nearly lost in the wreckage. When we began investigating the crime scene, we spotted a few victims had been taken to the back of the tree and potentially tortured. Initial reports indicated there were three victims: two sparkly pine cones and one unidentified John Doe.
Upon closer inspection, it wasn't a doe at all-in fact, it was a buck: Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer.
We were able to save Rudolph, the pine cones, and a few of other ornaments, but some were not so lucky. Please be warned, this image was taken shortly after the attack and is very graphic in nature:
Santa ornament, new to the tree just this year by way of Pier 1 Imports, did not make it. It's believed Santa was intended target of this particular attack. The cat appears to have a problem with beloved Christmas characters.
It was clear we needed to make some changes. This senseless violence couldn't go on. We barricaded the tree with a plastic gate, but even that wasn't enough.
We lost the Merry Christmas ornament after this siege.
We reset everything again and added pillows, a monopoly box, and an armed guard:
But that still was no match for a determined cat.
We're not going to have a Pinterest Christmas any time soon, but after spending too many evenings readjusting ribbon and experimenting with fortification methods, I've accepted that the "perfect" Christmas tree, like most other aspirational decor, might not be all that it's cracked up to be. It might be nice to have a tree that looks as polished on Christmas morning as it did when it was set up, but that's rarely how life goes, especially if you have a pet (or kids, who I assume are like pets, but with thumbs). The perfect tree might achieve #tannenbaumgoals, but it's what goes on around the tree that matters: the guests who point out their favorite ornaments, the presents that cover the pet hair coating the tree skirt, the memories made in the soft radiance of the lights, and yes, the antics of the cat that thwarts all attempts to maintain ornament order.
I think sooner or later we all long to recreate the majestic mall-style Christmas tree in our home with uniform ornaments that cover the tree boughs evenly like a festive pox, the unreachable back half of the tree that faces the wall just as festooned as the front. In fireplace deficient homes, we dream of a mantel bursting through the wall like the Kool-Aid man just for the month of December so our stockings have a designated place to hang instead of lying lumpy and bloated on the floor. We want the Christmas card scene in our living rooms, but no perfect Christmas scene is one that's truly being lived in.
Despite fighting every instinct to bubble wrap the tree until Christmas Eve, I'm embracing the imperfect ribbon and the ornaments overpopulating the top half of the tree out of paw's reach, because if the cat hadn't taken it upon himself to terrorize the tree, I wouldn't have been able to tell you this story. And that's kind of what this season is about: bonding over the leaning trees, the burned fruitcake, the amateur gift wrapping. You can't rock around a picture-perfect tree. So the next time your cat, dog, child, iguana, Elf on a Shelf, whoever messes with your tree, try to keep in mind that a sabotaged tree may not make for the best pictures, but it definitely makes for the best memories.
Katie Hoffman is a writer living in the suburbs of Chicago. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram @bykatiehoffman.