Christmas Tree?

Does anyone attempt to set up a christmas tree in their house with cats? I do, but I leave the bottom two layers of the fake tree ornament-free. Plus I don't invest a lot into ornaments (the K-Mart after Christmas deco sale).
Reason being is that a roommate I had in college her two cats saw the tree as something to climb and needless to saw I went through an entire collection of ornaments that year.

Now that I have Luna, this is her first BIG tree (last year we lived in an apt too small...so I just put up the 3 footer). Plus this is Patches & Beauty's first Big tree too (BF never put up trees before us living together).

Just wondering what else people do to cat-proof their trees.

well i have cats and i put of a tree and needless to sayi caught one of the fuballs climbing it lol

I'm getting my tree tonight. I'm planning on tying it to the ceiling with wire and my dad is coming over to help me figure out how to do this. If there is a rafter above the tree then we will put a couple of those plant hooks above it and tie the wire around the trunk and up through the hooks. Otherwise he will let me know what will be best (he does a lot of carpentry). This is the first time I've had my 3 cats and a Christmas tree and 2 are kittens so I anticipate a lot of climbing attempts. Clover never bothered my trees before but I don't think I'll be that lucky with this bunch .

My Rainbow kitty Shalimar never bothered the tree. She'd sit next to it and look pretty. The first year I put a tree up with my boys, I decorated it, went to bed, and woke at 2AM to CRASH! Someone decided to climb the tree and broke several of my porcelain ornaments. Since then, I've tied the tree to the stair rail behind it with fishing line.

Last year I bought a 3' tree and put it on top of my stereo cabinet. No more crashes.

We have a Frasier Fir real tree. It is 7' high. There are three methods to prevent climbing a tree(that work for my two babies).
#1- Lift the kittens up to sniff all over the tree. That way they are AS curious. They are still curious, but they know what the tree is now.
#2-Put small rodents near the tree. I have some Gerbils & their cage is located right by the tree. They frequently distract the kitties from the tree. Climb a tree of chase Gerbils?
#3-Load the bottom of the tree with cat proff ornaments. We used the "stuffed animal" ornaments my mom made when she had babies in the house, shatterproof glass balls(the best investment ever!), & a few other random unbreakable ones(wood ones). There are always ornaments on the floor, but as long as Lily doesn't hurt herself, that's fine.

A friend of mine has a cat that loves to climb the Christmas tree. She buys several packs of cat toys & lays them under the Christmas tree. Most times her kitty would rather play with the toys than climb the tree. She also gave him a little 3' tree of his own to climb on. It is secured down somehow(I can't remember how?).

Hmm...I didn't think about tying it to the ceiling.

Luna did eventually take down the 3 footer, but it took her a while. She went ornament by ornament (they were all plastic) and then knocked it down. LOL. I'm hoping the 6 footer is a little more intimidating.

I wonder if they make the plastic disks for christmas trees like what you can get to prevent squirrels from climbing your birdfeeder.

Anyhoo the more I think about the kind of tree I have, I should be OK. I have the type where you hook the branches onto the base. Luna doesn't like Instability in the kinds of things to climb on.

I"m reading all the suggestions - this is the first year in a longgggggggggg time dealing with kittens and trees. Our kitten (5 months old) has never seen a tree inside the house and she's hard headed to begin with.

Our 14 yr old is bored with them - so no problem. DH and I were talking about the best place to put it (in the corner) and having the unbreakable stuff on the bottom.

We also will have the water bottle ready And I'm thinking about getting a tree with sharp needles - the kind that is no fun to touch or climb and spraying the bottom of the tree branches and lights with Bitter Apple spray - that stuff should work good on keeping her out of the tree.

We put our tree up yesterday and the young ones (Louie, Lucy, Daisy) are already showing interest. I sprayed the tree with Pure Citrus-Orange Air Freshener. it's is really strong with just a little bit. And it has kept them away for the most part, but they are just kitties and want to be nosey. A firm, "No." works with these guys.]
All the other ones don't show any interest in the tree.

Loki, my kid brother's cat, downed the tree a few years ago. Now, it's triple anchored (even though he's too big to get into the tree now). A wire from the ceiling, and one to each wall in the corner that it's in. That, and a good tree stand has worked perfectly.

And keeping all of the good ornaments out of swatting-range.

Well the good news is that none of the cats have attempted to climb the tree (again, I think the hook branches of the fake tree is the difference - the tree I had prevously -with the roommates cats -didn't have this).
Anyhoo, Luna is lovin' it as her stalking grounds. The other night I'm playing with Beauty with a mouse. Beauty was getting into it and so I threw it to get things more exciting. Well Beauty started to go after it then stopped...waited...suddenly Luna EXPLODES from under the tree, scaring the poop outta me, and pounces the mouse.

We don't get a Christmas tree, partly because Spike will get into it (Oz is less of a concern; he doesn't jump on things or climb very much--too cautious for that sort of behaviour), and partly because my boyfriend and I usually go to our respective families for the holidays, so as much as I love decorating, I tend to save it for when I visit my parents.

My parents, OTOH, have a 17-year-old cat who used to love getting into the tree. The first year we had her (she was a tiny runt of a kitten when we got her) she climbed the tree and knocked it over, so they anchored it to the wall and ceiling. Now she just sits underneath the tree, hiding behind the presents, and my parents refer to her as the "Christmas Cat."

We have anchored our tree to the wall with plant hooks also.Blaze for some reason seems to think under the tree is the best spot to sleep.Neela doesn't seem to even mind it. I also put it up on a end table, so it's off the floor some.

We put up the tree yesterday, and Buster is a Christmas tree snob! He's looked at it, but ignores it for the most part. We have a fake tree, and didn't put any ornaments on the bottom foot of the tree, just in case!

Ed is 3 months old and this is her first Xmas and Xmas tree. This is also my first Xmas with a kitten...

I got a 6 footer from Big Lots and decorated it as usual...shatterproof balls, lights and the such. When I first put the tree up, she was all curious (as was expected) and then got more interested in the box the tree came in. Anyway, the first few nights, she tried climbing the tree and I gave her a harsh NO. Then, the other night while I was asleep, she decided to mess with the ornaments. I woke up to find ornaments all over the floor. Then today, she decided she was going to find her way under the skirt around the bottom of the tree and get stuck.

I don't mind if she is curious about the tree but, man, I wish she wouldplay with her other toys...

we can not keep Bear out of the tree. He climbs it and has broke several balls! SO we keep him in another room as much as posible.

We have 5 cats, the oldest of which is 12 years old, and we've had trees every year. None of them have ever climbed into the tree, just under it, which I think is kinda cute...they love to sleep on the skirt. So we've never had to do anything extraordinary, just keep the more fragile ornaments up high, and keep putting back the unbreakable ones that are on the lower branches. The three eldest had gotten to the point where they barely even bothered with those lower ornaments.
This year is the first year our two youngest have seen a tree, even though they're a year and a half old. Last year, we were moving at Christmastime and did not do any decorating. For some reason, hubby is having a very difficult time with them even being under the tree this year, and of course the two little one being so curious and playing with ornaments and packages is driving him crazy. I'm going tonight to look for some sprays that have been discussed to try and deter them. Wish me luck.

We have a full sized Christmas tree, with lights only (its fake) and a star at the top! We had it all decorated but Harley thought that the balls and garland were his personal toys, so we took them off and he hasn't touched it since!

My roommate and I put up a smaller fake tree (prelit, yes, we're ghetto, haha) and my cat stays in my room because she's an attacker but her cat likes to play with it. My roommate gets mad but that's what cats do. She's only 6 lbs so I don't think she's knocking it over any time soon.

Madden hasn't tried to climb ours or take the ornaments down yet. He did, however, want to chew the lights at the bottom of the tree, so I sprayed the cords with a little bit of lemon juice and he hasn't touched them since.

He's so funny about it though!! As soon as the lights are plugged up he runs over and lays down under the tree and then just looks up at the lights!! He'll lay there for the longest just watching the lights. The weird thing is that the lights don't flash or twinkle or anything, they're just regular old lights!! LOL

Here's an informative article I've just come across regarding kitty-safe Christmas trees: http://www.petplace.com/article.aspx?id=4002

Amanda