On Monday morning the Christmas tree made a sound. Not a crash, just a soft shiver of needles and a faint jingle from somewhere in the middle, and when I came around the corner with my coffee there was a gray tabby face looking out at me from about four feet up, framed by balsam branches and perfectly calm, as if she'd been hung there on purpose.
Mabel is eight. She has climbed every Christmas tree I've put up since she was a kitten, and this one lasted 48 hours before she went in.
Her record so far
Her first Christmas, in 2017, I had a four-foot artificial tree in my apartment in Coon Rapids. She was about nine months old and treated it like a jungle gym that came with prizes. I found ornaments under the couch, under the bed and once inside a boot.
The trees got bigger once Caleb came along, and so did her ambitions. The one that changed our rules was 2022, our first Christmas in this house. Caleb cut a seven-foot balsam at a tree farm outside town, we stood it in the living room by the front window, and three days later I heard a sound like a broom falling against a wall. Mabel had climbed to the middle, the whole tree had leaned toward the glass, and Caleb, who happened to be walking past with a laundry basket, caught it with one arm. We lost two glass ornaments. Mabel came out the bottom looking offended that the tree had moved.
How we anchor it now
Caleb solved the leaning problem the way he solves most problems, with something from the basement. He screwed a small eye hook into the side of the built-in bookshelf next to the window (into the wood, not our old plaster) and ran a length of 30-pound fishing line from the trunk, up near the top, to the hook. You'd never spot it unless you knew to look. The tree can wobble now, but it can't go over.
The other upgrade was the stand. Our old plastic one wobbled all on its own. Now we use a wide steel stand with a deep water bowl, and Caleb tightens the bolts until he can't budge the trunk with both hands.
This year's tree is another balsam, about seven feet, $55 at the same farm. We put it up Saturday, the day after we got home from Thanksgiving in Mora, and Mabel watched the entire process from the arm of the gray sofa without blinking. That's how we knew it was only a matter of time.
Our ornament rules
- The bottom branches stay bare. Roughly the lowest two feet get lights and nothing else. That's Mabel's batting zone, and it's also exactly the height of Hank's tail, which can clear a low branch in one happy swing.
- Nothing breakable below the top third. Glass and anything with a story goes high, including the little glass bird that was Grandma Lorraine's. Felt and shatterproof ornaments get the middle.
- No tinsel, no ribbon, nothing stringy. Our household learned about string the hard way with Hank, and cats and string are an even worse pairing.
- Ornaments get wrapped on. I twist each hook all the way around its branch so nothing dangles loose enough to bat off.
- No food on the tree. No candy canes, no popcorn garland. Hank is food-motivated and tall.
The stand gets plain water only, and I cut a cardboard collar that sits under the tree skirt so nobody drinks from it. That's what works in our living room. If you're unsure what's safe for your own cat around a tree or holiday plants, your vet's office has heard the question many times and would much rather hear it early.
From the front desk: December brings a particular kind of phone call, and it usually starts with "So, the cat might have eaten some tinsel." In my experience, the ones that go best are the ones that come in right away.
This year's climb
Back to Monday. I didn't pull her out. I've tried that before, and it ends with more needles on the floor and a cat who climbs higher to make a point. The fishing line held. Nothing broke, because nothing breakable lives where she goes. After about ten minutes she came back down the trunk on her own, stepped out from under the bare branches, shook a needle off her ear and went to sit on the radiator shelf, where she groomed herself in full view of the tree.
That afternoon Hank lay down beside the tree and thumped his tail against the bare bottom branches, which set off a small jingle somewhere up top. Mabel watched him from the radiator like he'd done something unforgivably clumsy in her house. Then she looked up at the top third of the tree for a long, thoughtful minute, and I moved Grandma's bird two branches higher.
