Please share your cat christmas tree horror stories!

We put up the fake tree. Before we got any ornaments on it, he was in the tree. At the top. Our little angel. Did not put any ornaments on that year. Just lights.




<---- That's the angel there.

My friend has cats that are perfectly well potty trained and never go anywhere but in their litter boxes, until she puts up her tree each year. They think it's a litter box. She's so frustrated!

I've had cats for 25+ years...only once have I had an issue with a Christmas tree...that was back in 1997 when I had two young kittens and two year-old cats and some-cat(s) knocked over the artifical tree which broke the tree stand and some ornaments. I've had kittens since and no problems although we have had an artifical tree all but one year (when we had a living tree). Occasionally some-cat will bat at an ornament but mostly they just curl up on the tree skirt for a nap.

we've always had more than one cat at a time though and I think they tend to entertain themselves better that way and cause less trouble...

[of course, I say that remembering waking up yesterday morning to pink pawprints across my dining room table, across the floor to the living carpet, across the living room carpet and up on to the (fortunately slipcovered) couch because DD11 forgot to clean up from her art project and Oreo (who is 15 and old enough to know better) got up on the table and walked through the paint palette...I know it was him because his paw was pink too]

Tammiem2pnc1 --We have had the same cat, only a different color. :0

Our Sylvester cat (looked like the cartoon cat) would run up the trunk and lounge in the limbs...every year. We learned that first year to anchor the tree to the window sill (2 cup hooks discreetly installed and string did the job).
At that point, we always had a live tree. As soon as the tree was put in the house, it was as if he said, "Oh!! for me!! for me!!!" and went to the tree. He drank the water in the "bowl" of the tree and when he was not in the limbs, he lounged below it, sleeping on the tree skirt.
The second cat lounged below but never climbed the tree.

Like all cat owners--I learned to hang certain ornaments high in the tree.

We have to get a live tree. The first year we had our big orange cat we tried to put up my fake tree and he was trying to both eat and climb it at the same time. He never bothers a live tree. We were concerned when we added a cat last year, but she didn't bother the live tree either. She occasionally would bat at the lower hanging, non-breakable ornaments and will lay underneath it, but thank goodness neither of them try to climb. Meanwhile, my big, beautiful artificial tree is in the box in the basement.

LOL!!! that would be horrifyingly hilarious!!

We have a fake tree that has little red berries at the ends of some of the branches- the ones near ground level are now white (the berries are white Styrofoam covered in red plastic, I guess), because they've gotten chewed on, lol.

My parents always had a live tree; when my sister would come home for Christmas and bring her cat,  the cat would hide underneath the tree and drink water out of the tree stand.  I was never sure if that was healthy for him or not, with the pine tree sap / whatever in the water... but he lived until he was 19, so apparently it didn't hurt him.   

(every year, we ended up having to build a barricade of presents around the bottom edge of the tree to keep him out from under there.  When it didn't work, it was always my job to crawl underneath the tree and yank him out.  fun times, fun times! )

The first year with Loki and Morrigan, we bought a new, pre-lit fake tree. They didn't bother the ornaments, but one night, one of them chewed through the electrical cord for the bottom tier of lights while we were asleep. As a result, our Christmas tree that year only had lights for the upper two-thirds.

That's also when Loki lost his kitty mind because of all the new smells of packages arriving in the house and began spraying anything on the floor--including the wrapped gifts under the tree. And he's never stopped.

So that's my 10 year, ongoing cat and Christmas tree horror story.

we also put the unbreakable ornaments on the bottom tier, and I hold my breath every year wondering if this will be the year the tinsely garland finally gets eaten. (so far we've been lucky in that regard)

ETA:  even when we didn't put up a tree, we decorated with ornaments-- I bought a few long fake garlands, wrap them with white lights, and drape them above the windows / doorways.  I hang some ornaments from the garland.  Plus, I decorate the open space on top of the kitchen cabinets with my Santa and snowman collections-- thankfully, the cats can't jump up there!

Our older cats love to sleep under the tree. A tree skirt to them is a seasonal bed and they love it. They usually end up knocking a couple of the bottom ornaments off just because they are clumsy.

But this year, my just graduated from college daughter has brought home her one year old cat and he's a handful. I'm a little worried about what might happen. We may put up the tree with lights and wait to see how he reacts before risking ornaments. I have loads of vintage Shiny Brites and german class ornaments. No way I'm sacrificing those for a cat.

I was decorating the tree and sitting on the arm of the chair with the tinsel behind me.
I turned slightly to grab a handful and got this instead.
This was a few years ago now,  I miss him "helping" me.

Not a cat story, but the anchoring is reminding ,e of when my brother was little. He knocked down the tree 3 times. The third time my dad nailed the tree stand to the floor. (Wood floor above a basement).

None of our cats have ever bothered the tree, including the 2 10 week old kittens we brought home a week before Christmas a couple years ago. No one has ever climbed the tree, they have batted at the occasional ornament, but the best part of a tree for them is wrestling on the tree skirt.