The Christmas Tree Incident

When we put up our Christmas tree, we commented to one another that Piper could possibly knock it over. After all she's a kitty experiencing her first Christmas.  Here first Christmas tree! 

During the Christmas season we had to get after her numerous times as she would hang on the tree limbs or swing on the lights.  Her ultimate favorite thing though was to bat at an ornament in an attempt to knock it down.  Cats sure do like to bat at things!  That's her fave thing to do!

She did climb up in the tree a few times.  Never getting very far before one of us would reprimand her.  As for the boys....they've never attempted to knock over the tree and they've never been interested in the ornaments or lights. The big concern with them this year was unwrapping their gifts before Christmas.  The boys are not confined to a certain area anymore when we leave the house so the concern of coming home to see Simon and Cody sitting in the middle of a bunch of unwrapped dog treats and dog toys was valid!

Last Thursday I undecorated our Christmas tree and packed up our Christmas décor. Since Christmas is done, as I undecorated there was no fear of anything I just got done discussing taking place.  I must mention we really load down our tree...lots of ornaments, lots of lights. There I was beginning the challenge of unwinding the numerous strands of lights from the tree limbs.  Some of which were a bit tangled due to the many strands crossing over each other.  Well I came to a certain section that was quite a mess as I tugged on the strand of lights before I knew it the tree was coming down.  It didn't give me much warning.  There was no time to yell "TIMBER"!  I then did my best to try to catch it. As I'm trying to catch it I notice 3 pets scrambling for cover.  My next thought was to slow the momentum of the tree down to give all 3 pets time to get far enough away. Which I was successful at! The expression on the little faces once the tree hit the floor and literally fell apart was rather priceless!  All 3 faces had a different expression I could read.  Cody had the look of relief, his face read, "Whew, I survived that!"...Simon's face read, "Oh my gosh, there I am snooping around and a stupid tree nearly takes me out!  I can't catch a break."....as for the look on Piper's face, well her face said, "Wow, that was COOL!  Something new I've never seen. Do it again mommie!"

Our tree was 7 feet tall so the funniest part to me was when I got it back upright.  It seemed as though it was all in one piece, towering above me.  But soon I looked to my left to notice the top portion of the tree had disconnected from the rest.  I felt a little dumb as I clued into the fact the tree was no longer 7 feet, more like 6 feet after it had fallen.

I've heard a few stories from people that have had their Christmas tree fall over but this is the first year I've ever had any incident.  We thought Piper was most likely to knock it over.  We were prepared all season long for it.  We watched her carefully to avoid a "TIMBER" situation, little did we know I was most likely to knock it over! LOL!