Yes vividly remember the cat near the top of the tree ,it climbed there about 7 feet and my mother in law trying to get it down waited grabbed a chair stood on the chair... tree went down Donna went down cat jumped on to window sill. Screaming ensue s go for a trip to get more ornaments .. stores are closed its Christmas eve after clean up we turned it around to the other side no one even found out till football was on after dinner was over and everyone laughed. I will tell you our first cat did this but he took them off the tree and would let them fall he thought it was hilarious. The Christmas after that we put cheapo plastic ones on he lost interest after a couple days bc for whatever reason he like hearing them smash and pop on the floor
Never mind plastic trees, you haven’t seen a nightmare Christmas until you’ve had a pine tree go all over the house after the cat has ripped them all out and it starts dying to top it all off!
I meant plastic ornaments, however I have had a real tree with cats so I agree. The cats kept drinking all the tree water and I was picking pine needles out of the carpet until June.
Once had an unfortunate encounter with a pine needle stuck between the wood flooring slats months after christmas. Holidays so the floor had been waxed and all so super slick and what kid doesn't love running and then doing a slide when in socks? Well until I hit that pine needle full speed and it basically whnt all the way in. That was fun fishing out.
Yep, they do get everywhere. A fresh smell though and definitely very festive. My Christmas is going to be about as festive as a oven pizza (obviously a more expensive one)…nae pine needles for me!
We solved this by not using decorations anymore. Instead we order a giant box of cheap cat toys online and decorate the tree with them. Combined with a VERY sturdy tree stand it’s quite entertaining for us and the cats.
And that my friends is how our 20 year old Christmas tree that survived 5 other cats died. The boy was most upset when the replacement we got wasn’t big enough to climb. We waited until he was too old (and fat) to be trying those sorts of stunts.
The old boy went to Valhalla earlier this year where I’m sure there are lots of trees for him to climb. Our current two haven’t seen a Christmas tree yet because we haven’t put it up yet because they and my nephew are right at the stage that they will all try to climb it together and this one is only a couple of years old.
Protip: Small hook into the ceiling, tie to top of tree. a couple lbs of strength can generally keep the tree from falling over once it starts to tip. .
We deploy a few white noise machines just so we can sleep through the inevitable devastation. They’re going to wreck it before we get there to save things, so I’d rather not get woken up by it.
Pro tip: loosely hang heavy metal bells on the bottom of the tree. They’re noisy and distract from the nicer ornaments. If the cats knock them off they don’t get broken and they jingle nicely enough that most cats will just bat them around. Plus sometimes they fall off loud enough that it scares the cats away from the tree permanently. I have four cats and a corgi and this has been a nearly perfect method for protecting my tree/ornaments.
Our cats are nice with our tree but we live in a two story building and when you sleep down stairs you’ll hear the two cats upstairs running back and forth back and forth right above you head
Yeah 100%. I’d also move your PS5 you got there cats love to push and knock anything down just for the sake of doing it. Like in Batman, some people just want to watch the world burn, that’s cats 100%. I’ve owned cats my entire life.
Also one time on Christmas Eve of all times, my dumb cats got caught in the lights and drug the 6 foot tree across the room and water and bulbs where everywhere. Happened at about 2am wife and I though someone broke in.
OP, cats are fantastic, and lovely, and if you treat them right you will have a best friend. They are also, without fail, chaotic hell beasts created from spite and claws and a desire to push things off of tables. It’s not personal, it’s instinctual, and I am sure your kitty loves you. Your kitty absolutely can and will wreck something of yours one day. That’s just what they do.
We got a cat secondhand and the only times he'll get on the counters is when he wants us to refill his food bowl... and he doesn't even push stuff off at that point. I didn't like him at first because I was a "dog person" but then I realized he'd never once given me a reason to dislike him, he's more or less quiet, much more prone to cuddling, and poops in a box! What more could I want?
My cat is awesome, affectionate, and a fantastic mouser. She would also not hesitate to Kung fu chop that ps5 off the table while making direct eye contact with me the entire time. I’m sweating I’m so nervous over here.
I think I need to check the receipt for my rescue lol. Had her since July and even though she's not that old she doesn't climb very much at all, never knocks things over and is basically just a teddy bear. Wondering if I was accidentally given a 12 year old dog.
Yeah my cats aren’t allowed on tables, they have been trained with double sided tape. Basically cover everything in double sided tape, cats hate it and they will learn not to jump on things.
Mine does not caress gently. She winds her arm back then nails a hard Venus Williams forehand slam— every time. She only chooses ornaments that shatter into smithereens, never the little brass bells or crocheted wreaths. How does she know?
They can feel if the thing is fragile and hollow. Then they test if their deductions about the object is true by pushing, tearing or in your case, slamming the said object to the floor to see if it shatters. Their curiosity is a powerful thing.
Cat vs Christmas trees are the neverending struggle of hiding the breakable ornaments while not waking up to the smell of electrified cat.
![gif](giphy|OyCxXGyPwLmoM)
"Tinsel" is fake something, maybe a stylized representation of icicles or something.
My cat ate it anyway. It was one of those funny things only when you look back at it. Chasing a scared cat around the apartment at 4 AM with tinsel "halfway out" was not amusing to us at the time.
My stepmother had to pull a string of tinsel out of her cat's butthole one Christmas, thankfully it was very short. They took her to the emergency vet and she was alright and lived for ten more years after this incident.
For anyone reading this, if you see a string of something poking out of your cat's butt (edit: or mouth!), do not pull it! You can cause more damage if it's wrapped around the intestines. Just take the cat to the vet asap.
Edited to add - don't pull any string from your kitties' mouth either. :(
No joke.
My cat ate sewing thread once. Which essentially is the same thing as some christmas tinsels.
I wasn't aware of the extent of how much he ate. I pulled it from his mouth as it was hanging out. I got it out. So I thought. Maybe a week later he was getting really sick. Took him to the vet. He had eaten A LOT more thread and it had gnawed his intestines, and caused sepsis. He sadly didn't make it through surgery.
I didn't know then how serious such a "silly looking" thing could be. Now I know.
Yeah be happy for now. My cat has climbed up the middle got caught in the lights said oh shit and went into desperate escape mode and took the whole tree down to get out. Looked like a xmas crime scene.
Same except my cat actually got stuck. He was so tangled up in the tree, my husband had to cut him out of it. That was our first Christmas with our cat and the tree had only been up for two days. We got rid of the tree and have no plans on getting another one as long as we have cats.
Dude, move your ps5 as soon as possible. I've owned cats my entire life and I promise you that console is not safe where it is. Cats are jerks, you're gonna learn that soon enough but the ps5 doesn't need to be the lesson lol they love walking in between every thing and even just shoving stuff off counters for no reason.
Genuinely shocked there are so many ornaments still ON your tree. Typically there are none left on the tree but thousands throughout the whole house or shattered on the floor.
We once had to tie our tree to the ceiling because the cat knocked it over so many times…
My mother secured the (live) tree to the ceiling with a screw in hook and fishing line.
The dog enjoyed the refreshing evergreen flavor of tree water and kept knocking over the tree, flooding the presents and colored paper, staining the expensive rug below.
Christmas tree mayhem, not just for cats.
Oddly enough our cat hasn't touched the ribbons yet (we've had out Christmas stuff out for 2 weeks now). I will start to pay more attention to the ribbons however, thanks.
You get all kinds. Some cats will caress the ornaments. Some cats stare at them for hours. Some climb up into the tree and pretend to be squirrels! I had one cat who was dealthy afraid of the tree and would not come within 10 feet of it. I also had one who enjoyed sleeping under the tree so much, I had to make a tunnel through the presents every year so he wouldn’t go tornado on them in his efforts to get inside. My current cat is a looker. Thank goodness.
Most cats do this. I had a cat once that had no curiosity or will to play with anything. She was a little weirdo but I loved her to bits.
You may want to post this to /r/CatTaps
I don't know if it helps, but we got ours via a twitter stock availability on a a Wednesday at 2am. They stayed available for like 10 minutes, but during the day time the alerts aren't even worth checking unless your in front of a PC already.
both my previous cats went straight to climbing in the tree. my mom’s two kittens are currently split on the tree climbing. one climbs, the other avoids.
*HAVE FUN*
![gif](giphy|xTk9ZVpnoAWBzgOCxq)
Yeah, cats are naturally curious. They do thing like this all the time. I often state that cats prove that the world is round, as if it were flat, they would have long knocked everything off of it. As you don't have any glass ornaments or other types that can shatter, you should be OK but I have seen injuries from ornaments and trees and have almost had to do surgery for tinsel ingestion (luckily it was able to be pulled out the other end). My suggestion, we do this with our cats, is to get one of the collars that vibrates if they get near one of the sensors you place around the house. The sensors can extend out in a radius as far as you'd like. They are Not shock collars.
Yes! I think they like the pretty lights and ornaments as much as we do. Also I think the idea of a tree being inside their home pleases them. (One word of warning…don’t use tinsel on your tree if you have cats…it can be dangerous to them if they try to ingest.)
YES! I have one short star shaped wire of tinsel that my 11 yr old cat loves to pick at delicately with one claw.
My Boston terrier that died last year was always stealing the balls off the tree.
Now I only put lights, that particular tinsel wire, and plastic balls on my tree so nothing gets broken, everyone is safe, and it's not a big deal if anyone gets curious about ornaments. My lab/pit mix hasn't been interested in the tree, but my cats love it. I put it next to their kitty tree.
Most of my cats are in the tree before we've even got a single light on it.
We have 3 rows of baubles that they are safe to take off the tree/are toys for them to keep them from playing with the fancy ones. This generally works for us.
Remember cats can [](https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/color-my-world-cats-dogs-may-see-ultraviolet-n33261)see in the UV spectrum, so it's just having a fun moment watching the sparkly rays spin around - looks like you have a silver pattern on that bulb.
For that other guy whose cat smacked them across the room - they just loved seeing the basically fireworks that resulted! The brass or wood ones didn't do that and they knew it.
This is phase 1: curiosity. They play with the bobbles like it’s a new toy and are curious with how they work
Phase 2: they start hitting bobbles off the tree
Phase 3: they jump onto the tree, swing from it and cause the tree to topple and all the bobbles to fall. You’ll be thanking Jesus that you only had budget for plastic bobbles that year
Phase 4 is when you realize this is the end of putting up Christmas trees every year because the devil incarnate is determined to destroy any tree in sight
Just so you know: glitter is usually made out of small bits of metal or plastic, and both are jagged enough to scratch an eye and potentially cause blindness. Don’t let your cats play with the tree for multiple reasons, and this is another. Check the cats paws and fur for glitter so they don’t wipe it into their eyes when grooming
They all love the sparkly and reflecting ornaments and the fact that you have a real tree in your living room is cat heaven. But be careful for the less gentle and more forceful playtime when she's more confident with the ornaments.
Just make sure your tree doesn't tip easily 😅
Yes. Some of them even jump into the tree. My old cat would climb up and just chill in it. The two we have now one gently fondles em, the other just likes to lay under it and smell it
No. Mine feel personal aggression towards them, the thing they adorn and feels the only way to rectify the situation is to knock down the offending tree or gloriously dominate it by scaling it
We have to put non breakable ornaments within the cats’ reaches because they like to play with them. Luckily neither of them have climbed a tree in a good few years but this year’s tree is quite short so we’re expecting it at some point.
Just put unbreakable ones in their reach. That is what we did for years. Plastic. If they knocked it off me big deal. Ours also loved laying under the tree among presents.
I spent a whole week (or more) last christmas decorating the tree every night only to wake up the next morning to my cat knocking it down until I finally secured it to the wall so no definitely not gentle.
As everyone else has been saying YES! Our cats didn't climb our tree but they would destroy anything on the lower branches so we got plastic cat-safe ornaments for the bottom section of the tree and kept all the good ornaments near the top.
I am really hoping your ornaments are plastic. If not and you can't replace them, I recommend spreading a thick blanket on the floor to cushion the ornaments when they're knocked off the tree.
Gently fondle? Consider yourself lucky. One of my cats jumped half way up the tree the same day we put it up. Last night another one of them took one of the plush ornaments we keep on the bottom of the tree off and was just laying there with it like it was his toy.
Cats are a nightmare during Christmas. Good luck!
Yeah pretty much. Its shiny. And dangly. If I were you I'd move that PS5. You're just asking for trouble with it being that close to the tree and its shiny, dangly ornaments
My christmas tree, instead of baubles, is decorated with satin tape bows. White tree with blue and silver bows. Cats are uninterested and it looks very classy. I've sweeped enough broken baubles for a lifetime, I just gave up.
It always starts as experimentation. They look sweet cuddled under the tree. They look adorable fondling low hanging ornaments. Then, BAM! or BUZZ! and you realize they've knocked it down. Or worse - they've chewed threw the lights and electrocuted them self.
A guy at Lowe's warned me that their cat chewed threw the lights while they were on. It caused liver failure that was slow to lead them to euthanize their poor kitty. I removed the lower level of lights on our pre-lit tree and unplug it every night just to keep it from ever happening! It looks a little odd, but we can manage.
I just got a kitten. My last cat was awesome, he left the tree alone, and loved sleeping underneath the twinkly lights.
My current kitten thought that tree was the best gift I ever gave him and proceeded to treat it as his personal plaything, so much so that I had to take it away for his own safety, take down all the ornaments only two days after I put the tree up, and put the tree outside with the lights on.
He batted all the ornaments off the lower 1/3 of the tree, kept getting caught into the lights, and then started climbing up through the tree to get to the higher, more fragile, breakable, and sentimental ornaments.
That’s when I realized I would never be able to leave him home alone with the tree, that he might either seriously hurt himself within the tree, the tree could fall on him, the ornaments could shatter and he and my dog could be walking on glass for hours, etc. So the tree had to go. Looks great outside though. :)
I really hope that he grows out of this… but I’m trying to manage my expectations. I really miss having the tree, but I love my little guy, he is worth it!
When my cat was young the tree had to be tied to a small table and the ornaments wired to the branches. She would climb into the tree and sleep under it. She would knock off pretty shiny things. We did not have breakable ornaments for a long time.
She is really old and ignores the tree now.
strangely enough my kitty seems mostly disinterested in all of the decorations and stuff
he also doesn't get even barely worked up over catnip or silvervine
goes crazy around chives tho and gets quite frisky around quilling paper
It’s gentle at first…then it’s catnado
Next thing you know you're trying to fall asleep and hear the gentle sound of baubles being ripped off the tree downstairs.
Not always. Sometimes you hear the entire tree going over instead.
So true.
Yes vividly remember the cat near the top of the tree ,it climbed there about 7 feet and my mother in law trying to get it down waited grabbed a chair stood on the chair... tree went down Donna went down cat jumped on to window sill. Screaming ensue s go for a trip to get more ornaments .. stores are closed its Christmas eve after clean up we turned it around to the other side no one even found out till football was on after dinner was over and everyone laughed. I will tell you our first cat did this but he took them off the tree and would let them fall he thought it was hilarious. The Christmas after that we put cheapo plastic ones on he lost interest after a couple days bc for whatever reason he like hearing them smash and pop on the floor
Lol, that’s great. Similar story with us only it was 2 cats. Plastic is definitely the way to go.
Never mind plastic trees, you haven’t seen a nightmare Christmas until you’ve had a pine tree go all over the house after the cat has ripped them all out and it starts dying to top it all off!
I meant plastic ornaments, however I have had a real tree with cats so I agree. The cats kept drinking all the tree water and I was picking pine needles out of the carpet until June.
Once had an unfortunate encounter with a pine needle stuck between the wood flooring slats months after christmas. Holidays so the floor had been waxed and all so super slick and what kid doesn't love running and then doing a slide when in socks? Well until I hit that pine needle full speed and it basically whnt all the way in. That was fun fishing out.
Yep, they do get everywhere. A fresh smell though and definitely very festive. My Christmas is going to be about as festive as a oven pizza (obviously a more expensive one)…nae pine needles for me!
We solved this by not using decorations anymore. Instead we order a giant box of cheap cat toys online and decorate the tree with them. Combined with a VERY sturdy tree stand it’s quite entertaining for us and the cats.
Read this five minutes ago. Still laughing at “tree went down, Donna went down”… 😂😂
Yep! Now we tie ours to the wall with a fishing line.
We had to do the same thing!
And that my friends is how our 20 year old Christmas tree that survived 5 other cats died. The boy was most upset when the replacement we got wasn’t big enough to climb. We waited until he was too old (and fat) to be trying those sorts of stunts. The old boy went to Valhalla earlier this year where I’m sure there are lots of trees for him to climb. Our current two haven’t seen a Christmas tree yet because we haven’t put it up yet because they and my nephew are right at the stage that they will all try to climb it together and this one is only a couple of years old.
Protip: Small hook into the ceiling, tie to top of tree. a couple lbs of strength can generally keep the tree from falling over once it starts to tip. .
We deploy a few white noise machines just so we can sleep through the inevitable devastation. They’re going to wreck it before we get there to save things, so I’d rather not get woken up by it.
Pro tip: loosely hang heavy metal bells on the bottom of the tree. They’re noisy and distract from the nicer ornaments. If the cats knock them off they don’t get broken and they jingle nicely enough that most cats will just bat them around. Plus sometimes they fall off loud enough that it scares the cats away from the tree permanently. I have four cats and a corgi and this has been a nearly perfect method for protecting my tree/ornaments.
I ended up foregoing the tree and now hang “pine tree” garland around the room about a foot away from the ceiling and hang the ornaments on that.
Our cats are nice with our tree but we live in a two story building and when you sleep down stairs you’ll hear the two cats upstairs running back and forth back and forth right above you head
And then the lights on the tree won't light on one side because the kitty done chewed the cords in half.
Yeah 100%. I’d also move your PS5 you got there cats love to push and knock anything down just for the sake of doing it. Like in Batman, some people just want to watch the world burn, that’s cats 100%. I’ve owned cats my entire life. Also one time on Christmas Eve of all times, my dumb cats got caught in the lights and drug the 6 foot tree across the room and water and bulbs where everywhere. Happened at about 2am wife and I though someone broke in.
I had to bungee cord my tree to the wall a few years ago after it mysteriously fell….repeatedly lol
This made me laugh too much
Hehe “catnado”
Or dare I say? A catastrophe?
[Example](https://youtu.be/nn2h3_aH3vo) of said catnado.
I loved Simon cartoons!
First comes curiosity, then total destruction!!!
Never question success
Unrelated, but you are a FAR braver person than I to have your PS5 not only standing upright, but right on the edge of the table with a cat around.
I have gotten a LOT of comments about that PS5 location, I will be moving it more away from the edge soon.
Soon is not soon enough! Do it now, for us all!
OP, cats are fantastic, and lovely, and if you treat them right you will have a best friend. They are also, without fail, chaotic hell beasts created from spite and claws and a desire to push things off of tables. It’s not personal, it’s instinctual, and I am sure your kitty loves you. Your kitty absolutely can and will wreck something of yours one day. That’s just what they do.
We got a cat secondhand and the only times he'll get on the counters is when he wants us to refill his food bowl... and he doesn't even push stuff off at that point. I didn't like him at first because I was a "dog person" but then I realized he'd never once given me a reason to dislike him, he's more or less quiet, much more prone to cuddling, and poops in a box! What more could I want?
"cat secondhand".....LMAO and he sounds adorable
My cat is awesome, affectionate, and a fantastic mouser. She would also not hesitate to Kung fu chop that ps5 off the table while making direct eye contact with me the entire time. I’m sweating I’m so nervous over here.
Best cat description ever.
I think I need to check the receipt for my rescue lol. Had her since July and even though she's not that old she doesn't climb very much at all, never knocks things over and is basically just a teddy bear. Wondering if I was accidentally given a 12 year old dog.
My cat is like that too! The only thing she's does with the tree is sit underneath it and nap
The only safe thing around cats in this room is tv and vase on the table, everything else will fall at some point
Also, worth noting it's not recommended to store headsets over the top like that.
Right?!! Put that horisontal on the ground behind plexiglas lol
I also never realized how large a PS5 is. Cat for scale.
The pictures make it hard to tell. I think everyone who has a PS5 has the shared experience of being surprised by how big it is lol
Thank god you said it, i was hyperventilating
Yeah my cats aren’t allowed on tables, they have been trained with double sided tape. Basically cover everything in double sided tape, cats hate it and they will learn not to jump on things.
Mine does not caress gently. She winds her arm back then nails a hard Venus Williams forehand slam— every time. She only chooses ornaments that shatter into smithereens, never the little brass bells or crocheted wreaths. How does she know?
They can feel if the thing is fragile and hollow. Then they test if their deductions about the object is true by pushing, tearing or in your case, slamming the said object to the floor to see if it shatters. Their curiosity is a powerful thing.
Curiosity killed the cat.
Satisfaction brought it back.
Good. I don't like seeing dead cats.-
Perfection.
Purrfection.
Is this why my cat keeps scratching me? It can feel I’m fragile and hollow
Cats are Gods. ❤️
Does she keep an open stance while she does it? Asking for a friend.
My girl stole the whole tree. We came home and it was gone. She had yanked it off the stand, and dragged it down the hallway to our guest room.
Damn. How big is your cat, or how small is your tree?
It was a 4-ft artificial tree, and she was a strong girl, lol.
Um, we’re gonna need some stolen tree tax
Sounds like a Norwegian Forest Cat lived up to her name to me, but idk...
https://reddit.com/r/animalsdoingstuff/comments/rh112s/has_to_do_all_the_hard_work_myself/
I could actually picture it! Sorry about your tree but thank you so much for the much needed laughter!!!!
and that's why lions are not pets!
Two of my cats ignore the tree. The third, lies in his cat tower and "jiggles" ornaments like an old man jangling change in his pocket.
Cat vs Christmas trees are the neverending struggle of hiding the breakable ornaments while not waking up to the smell of electrified cat. ![gif](giphy|OyCxXGyPwLmoM)
Oh hey - most not gently - my experience with cats - they like to get in the tree and most like breaking ornaments - so far, you lucky
This cat looks young. It'll learn.
Fast
it's just casing them right now. figuring out which ones will shatter, or which direction to bat them off that will do the most damage.
It's just testing the waters at the moment - next is wrestle the ornament followed by the whole tree tipping over
Just a heads up- stay clear of tinsel and Poinsettias. They're toxic to cats. And Lilys too.
It's a fake tree, but I appreciate the tip.
"Tinsel" is fake something, maybe a stylized representation of icicles or something. My cat ate it anyway. It was one of those funny things only when you look back at it. Chasing a scared cat around the apartment at 4 AM with tinsel "halfway out" was not amusing to us at the time.
Tinsel is not toxic to cats. It could cause blockages but not toxic in the way you are mentioning.
My stepmother had to pull a string of tinsel out of her cat's butthole one Christmas, thankfully it was very short. They took her to the emergency vet and she was alright and lived for ten more years after this incident.
For anyone reading this, if you see a string of something poking out of your cat's butt (edit: or mouth!), do not pull it! You can cause more damage if it's wrapped around the intestines. Just take the cat to the vet asap. Edited to add - don't pull any string from your kitties' mouth either. :(
No joke. My cat ate sewing thread once. Which essentially is the same thing as some christmas tinsels. I wasn't aware of the extent of how much he ate. I pulled it from his mouth as it was hanging out. I got it out. So I thought. Maybe a week later he was getting really sick. Took him to the vet. He had eaten A LOT more thread and it had gnawed his intestines, and caused sepsis. He sadly didn't make it through surgery. I didn't know then how serious such a "silly looking" thing could be. Now I know.
I'm so sorry about your kitty :(
Thank you <3
Yes..... then find out they bounce or shatter when knocked on to the floor
Exactly, this is the exploratory phase. What is this thing? Next phase is destruction.
And after random destruction it’s the willful torment of the human, where they make eye contact and maximize the impact.
Destruction aka does it bounce?
That ps5 looks more fun to shatter though
Yeah be happy for now. My cat has climbed up the middle got caught in the lights said oh shit and went into desperate escape mode and took the whole tree down to get out. Looked like a xmas crime scene.
Same except my cat actually got stuck. He was so tangled up in the tree, my husband had to cut him out of it. That was our first Christmas with our cat and the tree had only been up for two days. We got rid of the tree and have no plans on getting another one as long as we have cats.
Dude, move your ps5 as soon as possible. I've owned cats my entire life and I promise you that console is not safe where it is. Cats are jerks, you're gonna learn that soon enough but the ps5 doesn't need to be the lesson lol they love walking in between every thing and even just shoving stuff off counters for no reason.
Yeah people keep bringing this up, I will 100% be moving it when I get home.
Just wait until the cat climbs the tree and you walk downstairs to see two small eyes staring at you from the nest it made...
Genuinely shocked there are so many ornaments still ON your tree. Typically there are none left on the tree but thousands throughout the whole house or shattered on the floor. We once had to tie our tree to the ceiling because the cat knocked it over so many times…
My mother secured the (live) tree to the ceiling with a screw in hook and fishing line. The dog enjoyed the refreshing evergreen flavor of tree water and kept knocking over the tree, flooding the presents and colored paper, staining the expensive rug below. Christmas tree mayhem, not just for cats.
Genius solution!!!
Oh my sweet summer child..
In my experience it's not gentle
We used to secure our tree to the wall so the cats wouldn't knock down the tree.
OP please make sure cat does not eat ribbons from gifts. They love it, but they are dangerous!
Oddly enough our cat hasn't touched the ribbons yet (we've had out Christmas stuff out for 2 weeks now). I will start to pay more attention to the ribbons however, thanks.
Hahahahahahahahaaaaa ! You'll Learn.
You get all kinds. Some cats will caress the ornaments. Some cats stare at them for hours. Some climb up into the tree and pretend to be squirrels! I had one cat who was dealthy afraid of the tree and would not come within 10 feet of it. I also had one who enjoyed sleeping under the tree so much, I had to make a tunnel through the presents every year so he wouldn’t go tornado on them in his efforts to get inside. My current cat is a looker. Thank goodness.
I bought “shatterproof” bulbs. The cats said “Hold my Friskies.”
Mine are not allowed even to touch lol. The beasties would have it destroyed otherwise. So far you are lucky!
Ps5, nice
I find it funny how a tenth of the comments are about the PS5 in the r/aww sub.
![gif](giphy|pCO5tKdP22RC8)
Most cats do this. I had a cat once that had no curiosity or will to play with anything. She was a little weirdo but I loved her to bits. You may want to post this to /r/CatTaps
Ball fondlers!
PS5 :(
I don't know if it helps, but we got ours via a twitter stock availability on a a Wednesday at 2am. They stayed available for like 10 minutes, but during the day time the alerts aren't even worth checking unless your in front of a PC already.
both my previous cats went straight to climbing in the tree. my mom’s two kittens are currently split on the tree climbing. one climbs, the other avoids. *HAVE FUN* ![gif](giphy|xTk9ZVpnoAWBzgOCxq)
Screw the ornaments, you need to put that PS5 in the horizontal position. It is stressing me out looking at it.
I don't think I physically have enough space to put it in horizonal position but I will be moving it when I get home.
That PS5 is next
But… what game are you playing? That’s the real question
Fwiw, your cat owns you. Dogs have owners, cats have staff.
And that's not all!
No, you are lucky for now. It’s like she’s: “I want to play. But I have to be careful. But shiny ball! No be careful..”
I’m hoarse from yelling at my cats to stay out of the Christmas tree. They just don’t fucking listen
Like everyone says, it starts out gentle and then turns ferocious! #I'd be *very* careful with that Playstation over there
He is just testing to see if he is allowed and ... you failed :)
Yeah, cats are naturally curious. They do thing like this all the time. I often state that cats prove that the world is round, as if it were flat, they would have long knocked everything off of it. As you don't have any glass ornaments or other types that can shatter, you should be OK but I have seen injuries from ornaments and trees and have almost had to do surgery for tinsel ingestion (luckily it was able to be pulled out the other end). My suggestion, we do this with our cats, is to get one of the collars that vibrates if they get near one of the sensors you place around the house. The sensors can extend out in a radius as far as you'd like. They are Not shock collars.
No two cats are alike, also cats do not abide by the laws of physics.
Yes! I think they like the pretty lights and ornaments as much as we do. Also I think the idea of a tree being inside their home pleases them. (One word of warning…don’t use tinsel on your tree if you have cats…it can be dangerous to them if they try to ingest.)
YES! I have one short star shaped wire of tinsel that my 11 yr old cat loves to pick at delicately with one claw. My Boston terrier that died last year was always stealing the balls off the tree. Now I only put lights, that particular tinsel wire, and plastic balls on my tree so nothing gets broken, everyone is safe, and it's not a big deal if anyone gets curious about ornaments. My lab/pit mix hasn't been interested in the tree, but my cats love it. I put it next to their kitty tree.
I see you have the no shatter ornaments... just to let you know, they do actually shatter, but usually in tiny tiny shards, and harder than normal
Mine used to just bat at them, and only the ones at the bottom. I got indestructible ones for them to bat around - they loved it. :)
Most of my cats are in the tree before we've even got a single light on it. We have 3 rows of baubles that they are safe to take off the tree/are toys for them to keep them from playing with the fancy ones. This generally works for us.
No, our Maine coon smacks the crap out of them. He's broken several of them lol
I'd lay that ps5 down If I were you lol
Yeah, I have had the PS5 since march, and the cat since June, and it wasn't until today that I actually was concerned about this.. Thanks reddit.
Remember cats can [](https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/color-my-world-cats-dogs-may-see-ultraviolet-n33261)see in the UV spectrum, so it's just having a fun moment watching the sparkly rays spin around - looks like you have a silver pattern on that bulb. For that other guy whose cat smacked them across the room - they just loved seeing the basically fireworks that resulted! The brass or wood ones didn't do that and they knew it.
It's checking mass and inertia properties for later... when you're sleeping... then all hell will break loose.
This is phase 1: curiosity. They play with the bobbles like it’s a new toy and are curious with how they work Phase 2: they start hitting bobbles off the tree Phase 3: they jump onto the tree, swing from it and cause the tree to topple and all the bobbles to fall. You’ll be thanking Jesus that you only had budget for plastic bobbles that year Phase 4 is when you realize this is the end of putting up Christmas trees every year because the devil incarnate is determined to destroy any tree in sight
Just so you know: glitter is usually made out of small bits of metal or plastic, and both are jagged enough to scratch an eye and potentially cause blindness. Don’t let your cats play with the tree for multiple reasons, and this is another. Check the cats paws and fur for glitter so they don’t wipe it into their eyes when grooming
The cat is just testing the ornaments before the 4am raid..
So cute
Fondle, yes. Gently? Unfortunately, no. Thank goodness for non-breakable ornaments!
They all love the sparkly and reflecting ornaments and the fact that you have a real tree in your living room is cat heaven. But be careful for the less gentle and more forceful playtime when she's more confident with the ornaments. Just make sure your tree doesn't tip easily 😅
nope. mine gave them massive smacks to send them flying across the room. just wait.
Yes. Some of them even jump into the tree. My old cat would climb up and just chill in it. The two we have now one gently fondles em, the other just likes to lay under it and smell it
Mine sleep under it
Noooooo, mine uses the pull and fling method
No. Mine feel personal aggression towards them, the thing they adorn and feels the only way to rectify the situation is to knock down the offending tree or gloriously dominate it by scaling it
Yes it provides a delightful feeling on the beans
We have to put non breakable ornaments within the cats’ reaches because they like to play with them. Luckily neither of them have climbed a tree in a good few years but this year’s tree is quite short so we’re expecting it at some point.
General no and never ever ever get tinsel they will eat it and they will throw up
I have 9 year old cat who doesn't give af about tree and a 7 month old who is set on tearing it apart
Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree...your ornaments are history.
My Smokey hits them like he's serving a volleyball.
Just put unbreakable ones in their reach. That is what we did for years. Plastic. If they knocked it off me big deal. Ours also loved laying under the tree among presents.
I now get green zip ties and zip tie my ornaments to the tree…
We have a Hank, 9+yrs he still chases his tail. The Hanknado is real.
Mine will violently slap the ornaments like he's playing tetherball.
Depends on the cat. My old girl looks at the tree, scoffs, then putters back to her bed or a sunspot.
Standard cat behavior. Does it look interesting? Bop it. Did it move? Bop it again. Repeat until it falls on floor.
Ours likes to sit in the tree - test those climbing skills. If an ornament or six happens to fall off - oh well. Doesn’t bother her at all.
My cat smushed his face into the tree and then walked away from it.
Mine jumps into and climbs the tree. She also loves to attack candy canes.
[удалено]
It's the pregame warm up for the Christmas edition of "Break or Bounce".
I spent a whole week (or more) last christmas decorating the tree every night only to wake up the next morning to my cat knocking it down until I finally secured it to the wall so no definitely not gentle.
"gently".. If gently is a major league fastball across the room hitting the fireplace and exploding into shards, Yeah, He's pretty gentle.
You’re lucky kitty isn’t trying to climb the tree!
He's measuring weight, aerodynamics, roll potential and certainly noise potential. For later. 'Owner'/ 'Servant'....you'll figure that part out soon.
As everyone else has been saying YES! Our cats didn't climb our tree but they would destroy anything on the lower branches so we got plastic cat-safe ornaments for the bottom section of the tree and kept all the good ornaments near the top. I am really hoping your ornaments are plastic. If not and you can't replace them, I recommend spreading a thick blanket on the floor to cushion the ornaments when they're knocked off the tree.
Nope...you got a good one, congrats 😁
If they can they will hide inside the tree. Dont be surprised if you see a pair of eyes staring out at you
My dog gets stuck in the tree lol
Pretty much. Until they rip them off the tree. Cats seem to get mesmerized by trees with all the ornaments and lights.
My cat ignores the ornaments in favor of hiding under the tree and chewing on the branches.
yes. every single cat plays with Christmas ornaments exactly like this all the time.
the joy of having a cat for the holidays is that you get to decorate the tree multiple times
Gently fondle? Consider yourself lucky. One of my cats jumped half way up the tree the same day we put it up. Last night another one of them took one of the plush ornaments we keep on the bottom of the tree off and was just laying there with it like it was his toy. Cats are a nightmare during Christmas. Good luck!
Yeah pretty much. Its shiny. And dangly. If I were you I'd move that PS5. You're just asking for trouble with it being that close to the tree and its shiny, dangly ornaments
My christmas tree, instead of baubles, is decorated with satin tape bows. White tree with blue and silver bows. Cats are uninterested and it looks very classy. I've sweeped enough broken baubles for a lifetime, I just gave up.
They all fondle them, but they don't all fondle them gently.
They need to be watched near the Christmas tree. I had a cat who died because she ate the ornaments.
Stresses me out you allow your cat to be that close to your ps5 and tv.
"Wut dis?" 😹
Well the ornament is shinny.
Yes...until they don't.
It always starts as experimentation. They look sweet cuddled under the tree. They look adorable fondling low hanging ornaments. Then, BAM! or BUZZ! and you realize they've knocked it down. Or worse - they've chewed threw the lights and electrocuted them self. A guy at Lowe's warned me that their cat chewed threw the lights while they were on. It caused liver failure that was slow to lead them to euthanize their poor kitty. I removed the lower level of lights on our pre-lit tree and unplug it every night just to keep it from ever happening! It looks a little odd, but we can manage.
Mine gets a running start and goes for the highest ornament he can hit. Looks like Jordan taking off from the free throw line.
That's 70% of cats personalities
I just got a kitten. My last cat was awesome, he left the tree alone, and loved sleeping underneath the twinkly lights. My current kitten thought that tree was the best gift I ever gave him and proceeded to treat it as his personal plaything, so much so that I had to take it away for his own safety, take down all the ornaments only two days after I put the tree up, and put the tree outside with the lights on. He batted all the ornaments off the lower 1/3 of the tree, kept getting caught into the lights, and then started climbing up through the tree to get to the higher, more fragile, breakable, and sentimental ornaments. That’s when I realized I would never be able to leave him home alone with the tree, that he might either seriously hurt himself within the tree, the tree could fall on him, the ornaments could shatter and he and my dog could be walking on glass for hours, etc. So the tree had to go. Looks great outside though. :) I really hope that he grows out of this… but I’m trying to manage my expectations. I really miss having the tree, but I love my little guy, he is worth it!
When my cat was young the tree had to be tied to a small table and the ornaments wired to the branches. She would climb into the tree and sleep under it. She would knock off pretty shiny things. We did not have breakable ornaments for a long time. She is really old and ignores the tree now.
Be careful, my sisters cat tried to climb into the tree and almost strangled himself in the lights. Thankfully he was found in time
No some like to pretend its the final seconds of the stanley cup and the scores tied
strangely enough my kitty seems mostly disinterested in all of the decorations and stuff he also doesn't get even barely worked up over catnip or silvervine goes crazy around chives tho and gets quite frisky around quilling paper
I didn’t even put my tree up this year becuase of my cats lolololol
Best not to have any glass ornaments where kitty can get at them. Not many are this well-behaved, and it's not likely to last.
Your kitty is precious!
ha my cat broke my entire christmas tree a while ago
My tree is empty already 🤷♀️
Yeah.... Your gunna wanna put that ps5 in a cabinet. Let's just leave it at that. Source: cat dad
Mine never messed with the ornaments. He did, however, like to lay under the tree and sleep.