CHRISTMAS WITH CATS. Christmas with cats always has been a favorite time of year for me. It became even more special after a bitter divorce and 15 cat-less years of marriage. On Christmas day, my husband announced that he was having an affair. The divorce was finalized a year later on Christmas eve. However, I refused to have my Christmas ruined. Below is an excerpt from one of the chapters in my book on Clio, a one-eyed, three-legged cat, and her companion, Dickens, who both helped save Christmas for me.
A year later, Alex had the final divorce papers delivered to me on Christmas eve, yet despite Alex’s attempt to ruin Christmas, I decided that I would make every attempt to enjoy my first Christmas with Clio and Dickens. I decorated the house and put up a large artificial Christmas tree. I put up lights and all sorts of decorations. Little did I know the holiday would be so much fun with Clio and how my holidays spent with Clio, Dickens, and my mother would give an opportunity to realize that maybe having few presents (but plenty of love from my mother and cat) as a child was not a bad way to spend Christmas.
Both Clio and Dickens were fascinated by the large artificial tree that I put up in the living room. It had to be assembled branch by branch, and Clio was right there helping with each branch and decoration. Once it was decorated, Clio had to climb up the six-foot tree and hide in the branches. It was as if she knew that if I tried to extricate her, the decorations would have to be sacrificed. My mother enjoyed watching the cats try to un-decorate the tree as I tried hard to decorate it and keep it decorated. Dickens initially did not climb into the tree, but the “cat in tree” tradition was passed to him. Dickens originally stayed out of the tree, but I’m sure that when I was at work, Clio taught him how to climb into it. In fact, Clio would often leave him in the tree so I would think that he was the guilty party, or I would come home from work and find them both deeply embedded in it.
When Clio wasn’t in the tree, she was sitting on the small chair near it, perched over the arm and occasionally stretching out her paw to liberate a decoration from the branch to which it was attached. She also loved to sit under the tree and quietly un-decorate packages by taking off bows, trying to rip paper off the packages, and taking tissue paper out of the gift bags. She would find her gifts (usually catnip toys) and proceed to unwrap them to sneak a peek. Above all, Clio’s favorite activity was sleeping under the tree, and she and Dickens would jockey for a position under it among the presents.
When it was time to take the tree down, I had to disassemble it branch by branch, and Clio and Dickens would huddle under the remaining branches. There was never a more pathetic sight. It was as if they were saying, “Please, please don’t take down our tree. You won’t let us out, so let us enjoy the outside indoors. “Several years after I remarried, my husband Jeff and I bought a bag for the tree so we could more easily store it in the attic. Before we took that bag up to the attic, we would have to check it because occasionally Clio would crawl inside it. There was no way she was giving up on the tree just yet.
We eventually renovated our living room and put in a window seat near our front picture window in the exact spot where I had always placed the Christmas tree. The loss of floor space by the front window meant that we had to buy a smaller Christmas tree and place it in a new location. Clio and Dickens weren’t too happy that we downsized the Christmas tree and relocated it. Soon, however, they discovered that the tree’s new location was much better for their covert purposes. Since the tree was near the large fireplace hearth and in a corner, it was virtually impossible for us to get them out from under the tree without seriously injuring ourselves or knocking it over and breaking all the ornaments. What initially seemed to be a disaster for the cats turned out to be a win-win situation for the cats and for me. Clio and Dickens saved Christmas for me, and I saved Christmas for them by once again by providing them a private space under the tree.
