Chapter 4: The New Tree

Pretty soon the leaves were gone from the trees and this cold white stuff was covering the summer grass I used to lay in. It was cold on my paws and Andrea said I could only go outside to play for a little bit and then brought me back inside. “Too cold for kitties”, she would say. These months weren’t as fun for me to play outside, but the fun I was about to have indoors made up for that.

There it was. The Christmas tree. This tree wasn’t like my other trees in the yard, it had all kinds of shiny colors on it and dangle toys and lights. It was way more fun to climb than my other trees! Sandee was always chasing me away, “not for kitties, Vanny”, but I would sneak behind the sofa when she wasn’t looking and enter behind the tree. She had these strings with white balls on them that I could bat around; I learned those got me in trouble reeeeeal quick: “Van, no chewing the pearls!”. I would just wait until the phone would ring or the washing machine would buzz, then she would go away and I was back in action. She even had a nice blanket wrapped around the bottom of the tree for me to nap on. Yeah, the Christmas tree was two months of fun and mischief for this cat.

But there was one downside that came with this Christmas tree, the Christmas card photo shoot. Andrea made me put this dumb thing on my head she called a “Santa hat”. I had to wear it for almost two whole cat naps of time. She was wearing one too, like that made me feel any better. I looked ridiculous. She kept saying “Smile Vanny, this is for the Christmas card”. Ugh, it was a painful 20 minutes.

See photo of my displeasure to the right, no laughing.