How long will the Christmas tree stay up? Stories please.

Luna has never attempted to climb my parents' real tree, though she did try it with my (little) fake tree. luckily she just got on one of the branches and since the tree was so cheap (from target) that the branch just fell off! haha. Duct Tape fixed that problem. Other than that, she does love to play with the ornaments hanging on the bottom, so this year i've decided to try and hang cat toys from the bottom the one's they put out for christmas. We'll see how she likes that. Most of the "real" ornaments I have are cheap ones as well, therefore not so breakable anyway...

Considering things under the tree, Luna LOVES to chew on ribbon. She chewed all the dangly ribbon off a present to one of my friends last year. So i've decided to keep the ribboned-gifts ontop of the TV or something.

Well this is going to be Gizmo's first Christmas. I have a nice little artificial tree that i put up every year and I'm not too sure how he's going to feel about it. Knowing how he is though, he'll probably be afraid of the thing, which would actually suit me fine. Then I won't have to worry about him trying to climb it, hide in it, or destroy it.

I'm hoping to get the tree up this weekend so we'll see how it goes.

I'm putting up a small, potted fake tree in the study, with unbreakable ornaments. It's up on a pedestal, and has been there, despite Smudge's battting the lower ornaments, for 4 days (funny...just as I typed this, he started again--no, wait a minute, it's LOKI!--Drat!). It's still standing! I usually have a large, real tree in this room, but we have 4 more young ones now, so I thought it best to have the above; but may have a big real tree in the living room. Amazingly, even though we had 5 cats last year (including 2older kittens), no trees were harmed--they just batted a few lower ornaments, and stole some of the plastic "icicles". I will decorate to be motre cat-friendly this year, because of the Wild Bunch foster cats!
Every day, when I came home from work, I fully expected to see a horizontal tree, and water all over the place!

I also decorate a tree for the birds (outside).

MargeCat

My parents have a pretty inventive way to fix that issue, and I know better than to get a full sized tree.

The folks have three anchor points. One above, and two on the walls. The tree is always in the same corner, so they just leave the hooks in year-round. Their cat is too fat and lazy now to really try anything, but when he was young and frisky, he brought the whole eight foot tree down one night. There's a kind of tree (a real tree, obviously) that has its branches really close together, and they branch off really close to the main trunk. It would be impossible for a large cat to get into, but I think my Bella could still manage it.

Make sure to keep the breakable ornaments out of kitty reach!

I think I'm going for one of Target's little rosemary trees this year, and some cheap-o ornaments, since all of my Christmas decorations are in another state.

We don't anchor the tree but I've never had a pet knock it over... We use a very heavy tree stand and the animals pretty much stay away from it anyway. The only thing I have to watch out for is my mother. She's knocked over the trees a couple times!

My own Christmas tree is only about a foot tall! The cats rarely bother it, but Willow did try to 'eat' it last year!

When we visit my parents' for Christmas though, Molly will immediately climb it (followed by Tibby) and knock as many baubles as possible onto the floor where they will then continue to bat them around the room! They can cause so much tree disaster in a matter of minutes!

My Mum's poor Christmas tree is all bent and strange looking now! Good job she's a cat lover too and loves to see the cats playing in the tree!

Ginger has decided not to climb our flimsy 4ft tree after discovering she seems to get wet everytime she starts to play with it.
Is now sitting snugly on the sofa after cleaning that dreadful water off looking sideways at it in case it decides to attack again LOL.
Now what to do about the baby?

This is our first Christmas in our place together and first with our new kittens and we just got our tree up, both our lil kittens were fighting over the braches I had trimmed off. Tommie was bitting on the branch and drug it away from his brother so I guess he claimed it for his......

Is it OK for them to nibble on the pine needles? Not sure I give our tree....huuuum 3 days before I come home w/ it knocked over

I bought some small holed, dark green netting from the craft store, and wrapped it around the bottom half to 2/3rds of the (real) tree, leaving enough hanging off around the bottom that I could gather it together underneath the tree around the trunk (I use a stapler to hold the ends together), and no more kitties drinking tree water, no kitties climbing in the tree, no toddlers undecorating the tree ( the nettings original purpose ), and no new Boxer dog helping herself to toys off the "ball tree" ! I'll post a pic if I can- you can barely tell that the netting is there . Oh, and it also keeps wayward ornaments from hitting the floor ! This is the 3rd year I've used it- so far, so good !

Here it is:

We finally put unbreakable ornaments on after having the tree with lights up for a week. The next morning Frankie was batting the ones he could reach off the tree and then he decided he wanted one half way up the tree and took a flying leap at the tree. It shook and the angel on top fell down but was held from falling completely by the power cord. I screamed when he did his flying leap and he hasn't tried that again but is facinated in trying to get the lights and lower ones so now we only have ornaments on the top half. Looks pretty silly but so far we still have a tree.

I found this on the internet. Sounds like the way to go about it.

How to "Cat-Proof" Your Christmas Tree


1. Buy a cardboard box big enough to hold the tree. Paint it red and yellow. Paste pictures of cats playing with toys on the box. Write phrases on the box like: "Giant very expensive cat toy." "Your cat will LOVE it!" "No cat can resist!" "Hours and hours of fun!" "Only $99,999,999.99!"


2. Bring the tree home inside the box, and round up your cats. Say, "look what mommy got you! A giant, really really expensive cat toy! You will go NUTS! I can't wait to see you play with this!"


3. Force the cats to watch you put up the tree and decorate it. If they drift off towards the cardboard box, bring them back to the tree and point at it while saying things like "you had better play with this thing, mommy spent a month's salary on it."


4. When the tree is decorated, wave some branches in their face and shout, "come on and play! Lookee here, the branches move, see? Kitty is supposed to swat at the branches and have lots and lots of fun! Hey, come back here! You come back here right now and play with this tree. See how much fun it is? HEY. I'M TALKING TO YOU. Get out of that box right now, mister. The box is NOT a toy. THIS is the toy."

If you do this with enough sincerity, your cats will avoid the tree like it was a foaming mad Rottweiler. Of course, you'll be stuck with a big ugly cardboard box in your living room all through the holidays, but it can always double as a buffet table.

Originally Posted by AsecretK

I found this on the internet. Sounds like the way to go about it.

How to "Cat-Proof" Your Christmas Tree


1. Buy a cardboard box big enough to hold the tree. Paint it red and yellow. Paste pictures of cats playing with toys on the box. Write phrases on the box like: "Giant very expensive cat toy." "Your cat will LOVE it!" "No cat can resist!" "Hours and hours of fun!" "Only $99,999,999.99!"


2. Bring the tree home inside the box, and round up your cats. Say, "look what mommy got you! A giant, really really expensive cat toy! You will go NUTS! I can't wait to see you play with this!"


3. Force the cats to watch you put up the tree and decorate it. If they drift off towards the cardboard box, bring them back to the tree and point at it while saying things like "you had better play with this thing, mommy spent a month's salary on it."


4. When the tree is decorated, wave some branches in their face and shout, "come on and play! Lookee here, the branches move, see? Kitty is supposed to swat at the branches and have lots and lots of fun! Hey, come back here! You come back here right now and play with this tree. See how much fun it is? HEY. I'M TALKING TO YOU. Get out of that box right now, mister. The box is NOT a toy. THIS is the toy."

If you do this with enough sincerity, your cats will avoid the tree like it was a foaming mad Rottweiler. Of course, you'll be stuck with a big ugly cardboard box in your living room all through the holidays, but it can always double as a buffet table.

Click to expand...

This is excellent and so true!!

I use to decorate my christmas tree with little powered motors that I would hang crystal glass ornaments that I have collected from all over the world. It has been many many years since I have opened that box of ornaments with 6 now 7 cats in the house.

I usually purchase a real tree approximatley 12-15 feet tall. I never light the bottom limbs and all other lights on it are cool burning. The entire tree is covered in BOWS yes bows... I tie them on one at a time.

The tree itself is attached to two wall anchors that have been put in studs.

I never take my tree down before the first sat in January. My husband told me along time ago why but I forgot.

I hook up my old vcr video camera on its pedistal and record all the cats and their antics. Cheap entertainment and we find the cats love to watch the playbacks with us on the big tv in the living room. Only time I ever see my cats watching tv.

hugs menou lover

ps Never Never put icecles on a tree if you own cats. I am talking the silver onces in a box that you can drap on trees. Kittys eat them yuck not good.

We've been good so far. My tree has been up since Nov 1st (I'm in retail, so I have to get it put up early), and Miss Tigger has only played with the lowest ornament once. She loves sitting underneath the tree and jumping out at us as we walk by, but so far, she has left the tree alone....

i just recently moved in with my boyfriend who has 3 cats, abi, peaches and cream. and a few months ago i adopted another little guy i named cooper. i absolutely LOVE christmas and insisted upon him getting a christmas tree. he informed me that it wouldnt last long but i told him how bad could it be. so that night he brought home a tree, garland, lights, and some unbreakable ornaments. i opened the box and my little cooper who is only 6 months old wanted to play with the tree right then-- it wasnt even put togehter yet?!? i was like are you kidding me... its a tree? i couldnt believe it! so i put the tree together and we decided to put it on a table in the corner of the living room, we put the lights on, put the ornaments on and the cats came over looked at it and walked away. so you know how women are i decided to rub it in his face how he was wrong and i was right. so we went into the bedroom to watch a movie when i heard an ornament hit the sliding glass windows, i went outside to find one cat sleeping on the dining room table, one dashing out of the bathroom, one in the litter box, and abi no where to be found. i walked over to the tree picked up the loose ornament and put it back on the tree. Then right there staring at me was two big green eyes, abi was laying in the tree, she scared the hell outta me. i told her to get outta my tree and to lay in her little kitty bed besides it would be more comfy. i went back to tell frankie about my discovery. shortly thereafter i went back out in the other room and my cooper had all the ornaments off the tree that he must have batted around all over the house, half the garland pulled off, and he was sitting almost all the way at the top of the tree. oh goodness! maybe i should have listened to him.... later that night when we were sleeping the cats knocked the tree down, pulled the rest of the garland off, and complelty dismantled the tree- needless to say the tree is now in the bedroom where the cats arent allowed.

I have a small table top tree the girls don't bother with. But years ago when I llived at home we bought a real tree for a change (usually went with artificial). Well, our cat Sugar (indoor only cat) thought she'd christen the tree and poo'd under it .
After that it was back to artificial .

I have a 4' tall artificial tree, which my older girls, Katie and Gracie, generally leave alone once it's up. Katie's been known to try climbing it and sitting in the branches, though. Gracie's more interested in all the boxes containing the Xmas decorations.

I'm curious to see what my young ones, Peter and Claire, do with the tree this year. Last year was their first Xmas with me and they pretty much ignored the tree the first week it was up. Then, one evening, in the course of about 10 minutes, while I was doing laundry, they just went nuts. I came into the living room to find the tree tipped over, the branches bent and oranments scattered all over the place. They must have gotten it out of their systems, though, because they didn't bother it again after that.

We set the tree up and Pippin had it knocked over 10 minutes after we stepped back from getting it straight in the stand. Do we have a record here? We haven't even got out the lights and ornaments--he was maniacal over the tree alone.

At present the tree is in the garage and Pippin is in the house. When my husband gets back from a trip I'm sure he'll suggest it needs to be the other way around.

I came down one year to find tin foil on strings hanging from the tree where the choccy santas had been!!!!