This is our third year with a fake tree. I don’t remember whose idea it was exactly to make the switch, but I do remember that we were going to Mexico for Christmas the year we brought it home from Costco. It seemed to make sense at the time. No dried up needles to create a fire hazard while we were gone. I do miss the yearly Christmas tree hunt and the smell of fresh evergreens in the house…but not the trauma of getting the tree straight in the stand.
I wanted a tree with colored lights like we’d always had, but we ended up with white. And with a tree so bright that you’d never know the other lights were off in the living room. I found there was nothing I could really do to tone down the lights, but I tried to compensate for the lack of color by strategically hanging shiny red, blue, and green balls throughout, plastic, of course, because I know how tempting any hanging thing can be for two cats.
The cats know they are not supposed to bother the tree, but when we’re not looking, they pull the balls off. I suppose that’s not altogether a bad thing, because since I’m never too confident of my decorating abilities, this gives me a chance to try multiple times to get it right.
But this morning, as I walked into the room, I had a realization: all four of the balls I saw on the carpet, and all those I’d seen the previous day were green! My first thought was, “Wow! Those are really smart cats! I didn’t know they could distinguish colors like that!” Then I began to wonder, “Did they single out the green balls because they prefer them? Or because they stand out more?” And then it was…gasp…”Do the green balls look bad on the tree? Are the cats better decorators than I am?”
Not to worry. My concerns were short-lived. Because upon closer inspection I found two red balls on the carpet behind the tree. Whew!
