It’s beginning to look a lot like.....déjà-vu!

And so, the tree is up. It's been a little over a week and it's survived thus far....mostly....although some of the decorations aren't faring quite so well.

Since Mel and Louis unceremoniously demolished our tree last Christmas (as you'll see from the pictures below), we had no choice but to buy a new one this year and ended up with one that appears to be a 7.5 footer - way larger than the display model in the store - that is now virtually devouring the whole living room. We actually bought it early November and I confess, we even set it up that same day. NOT because we're those people, I might add (who get everything Christmassey well underway 6-8 weeks in advance) although Christmas ads began popping up on TV even before Hallowe'en and many stores wasted no time in cranking out the old seasonal faves as of 12:01 am on Nov. 1st.

Noooo. We put the tree up right away as an experiment with our kitties - namely Mel and Louis - since those two rambunctious goofballs celebrated their first Christmas last year by systematically destroying the tree, branch-by-branch and at least 8-10 decorations at a time.  

One of their first victims was Rudolph (left). Let's just say poor Rudolph is now an amputee misfit toy perhaps better known as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Lame Deer, who had, just like the tree, merrily survived unscathed for 11 years and 5 cats! The Curious Incident of Rudolph in the Night simply started the bauble rolling, so to speak, and was quickly followed by almost all of the decorations, at one time or another, mysteriously vanishing overnight, only to be stumbled upon (quite literally) in various corners of the house for the next 11 months -  maimed, slobbered on, defaced with teeth marks and generally looking like mini ruins of their former selves. Mel, it turns out, is rather partial to anything shiny, silver, sparkley or covered in glitter - quickly earning himself the nickname Magpie Mel. I lost count of how many times we had to chase him as he dashed off upstairs with something in his mouth ready to hide it under the bed. Louis was less obvious but just as guilty. On more than one occasion we caught them diving from their favourite hangout on the window-seat straight into the middle branches of the tree! The whole thing shook, decorations fell and whichever cat wasn't the tree-diver was waiting down below, ready swipe any decorations that fell off in the kerfuffle.

Another of their favourite 'Reindeer games....haha, get it? Was "Let's see how far we can bend the Rudolph at the top". As you can see, we came downstairs one morning to find he'd been dragged southwards a full 90 degrees, exactly to kitten-in-the-window height, dishevelled yet remarkably still intact.

I’m amazed it hadn’t flipped right back up again, catapulting the culprit feline(s)

at 90mph right through to the dining room!

Reindeer down under - literally!

Not satisfied with amputations, theft, destruction and generally wreaking mayhem,

they proceeded to climb the branches till virtually all of them broke in their holders,

leaving the tree crippled and looking more like a massive glob of spinach

slumped in the corner of the living room.

Alas there really was nothing we could do to save it.

Within 3 weeks it had pretty much ceased to be.

One old, beaten and forlorn tree
- gone to meet it's maker.

Mel, totally enamoured with a 'real' fire.

So this time, while Lorne was away for a week with his friends getting their eardrums blasted on their long-awaited heavy metal cruise, The Barge to Hell, I put on a Christmas movie, treated myself to some festive 'spirits', put a duraflame log in the fireplace, much to Mel's endless enjoyment, and began the long task of untangling lights (despite the fact I always put them away so carefully each year), pulling said string of lights away from grabby, clawing cat paws and, in my usual meticulous (verging on OCD) manner, dressed it up in our 100 or more decorations - which took me about the next two days!

 



Tadaaa. Behold - new tree in all its glory!

Not to sound boastful, but I was really quite pleased with the result. Just as well, since it was short-lived after that.

For the first week the tree stayed safe and intact despite the fact 2-3 decorations are regularly being pulled off during the day shift and 3 more during the night. And then it became 3-4. And now it's about 5-6 each time. Rocking horses have lost their rockers. Stars have been stripped of their golden trim. Angels have bent wings. Bells are sneakily being jingled at all hours of the night and ol' Rudolph at the top seems to lean in a new direction each morning.

Our living room furniture now looks more like a pile of dodgem cars since we’ve had to squish things close together so as to keep a ‘safe’ perimeter of clearance around the tree, because Mel and Louis soon decided to launch themselves straight from the armchair, couch, window-seat or Lorne's cigar humidor, right into the lower and middle branches of the tree.

Ah bless, courtesy of those sneaky little critters, it’s certainly beginning to look a lot like déjà-vu as the once-sturdy branches are starting to collapse, one on top of the other, throughout the bottom half of the tree. In fact the mid-left looks just like a cannon ball blew right through it.

For now I’ve used long screws to try and wedge the broken branches back up to (almost) their correct position but we’ll see how long it lasts. Looks like another new tree or else no tree at all for next year.