It’s been three days, and the tree is still standing.
Last year, we put up our artificial Christmas tree. The cats turned it into a Festivus Pole. Or pretty close to it.
I should explain that I wasn’t really a fan of the artificial tree anyway. We got it because I left getting a tree too late. It was just a couple days before Christmas when I went looking for a tree. All the trees had packed up and gone home. I could have taken my trusty axe and headed for the woods, but I decided I didn’t have time for that. So we went with artificial.
It served us well for a couple years. Yes, it wasn’t the same. But it did the trick. Sort of. So we stuck with it. But last year, two new cats moved in. They decided that the tree was a cat toy. They leaped at it with great joy, snapping off the branches as they did so. Luckily, we didn’t have time to get many ornaments on the tree. I did have my Diehard, John McClane crawling through an airduct ornament of there, but that was about it. And they seemed to leave that alone, lucky for them.
But the tree didn’t last long. It was basically a stick, which I found amusing enough to leave standing in the room for the duration of the season. In a way, I had come to admire the decorating talents of the cats.
This year, since rebuilding the artificial one was not an option, we decided to go with a real tree. Strangely, the cats haven’t bothered it. At least not yet. The walk by, they sniff it a bit, but so far, that’s it. No leaping into the branches. No intent to destroy. They seem content to just let it stand there.
I can’t say for sure it is the answer, but the cats seem to prefer a real tree. At least they haven’t tried to kill it yet.