Practical Ornaments

Cats like to play with ornaments. So we have this great set of ornaments that are just styrafoam shrink wrapped with the decoration of an ornament. They are extremely lightweight, and can be batted off the tree hundreds of times with no damage done.

As a matter of fact, this is Taggart’s first Christmas tree (we didn’t put one up last year), and today I had to go put six of these back on the tree. We figured that if we just provide appropriate “plaything” ornaments towards the bottom of the tree, this will be enough entertainment to keep the cats from actually climbing the tree. So far so good.

Also, we have one ornament (which we purchased to commemorate Rearden’s first year with us) that is just a jingle bell, decorated with little paw prints. We always hang it on one of the bottom branches, and the cats LOVE to play with it. This morning we caught Taggart laying under the tree on her back, mercilessly batting the cat bell ornament.

One more practical addition to the tree that I like is the bows. Joel doesn’t like them, and to be honest, I doubt they’ll last another year. However, I think that they make the tree look “complete” and colorful even when it is not lit.