Cast of Characters:

Sammy - 7-month-old female kitten
Mommy - MUCH older female human

After much contemplation and mental anguish, Mommy decides that she will not
let Sammy's, er, boisterousness prevent her from the joy she gets in putting
up a Christmas tree.

At 2:00PM in the afternoon of November 24th, Mommy locks Sammy in the
bedroom so she can open the garage doors to bring in the tree she and Daddy
just purchased. Sammy wails loudly the whole time as she suffers the
indignity of being confined to only one, albeit large, room. Mommy and
Daddy wrestle the (formerly) live pine tree into Mommy's sitting room and
set it up in the stand. Daddy, hearing Sammy howling, starts to say, "For
gawd's sake.", but then gets a glimpse of the look Mommy gives him and
quickly stops speaking. Daddy decides to go upstairs to pop the popcorn for
stringing.

Mommy lets Sammy out of the bedroom. Sammy starts to pounce on Mommy's
ankle for a quick bite when the scent of pine suddenly distracts her from
her prey. Sammy runs over to the tree and springs up into the lowest branch
to investigate this new toy Mommy has brought home for Sammy. However,
unbeknownst to Sammy, Mommy has added a new weapon to her arsenal in her
continuing war with Sammy's bad behavior - a squirt bottle!!

Mommy snatches up the squirt bottle and sprays a stream of water at Sammy.
Sammy, who has a very thick coat of Maine Coon hair does not even feel the
water as it beads up and slides off her back. Mommy changes her aim and
squirts water on Sammy's cheek, and this *does* get Sammy's attention.
Sammy turns around and starts licking and batting at the stream of water
coming her way and heads higher up the tree in order to get a better
perspective on this fun new game Mommy has invented. Mommy tries one more
time to squirt Sammy out of the tree, but it is soon clear that Sammy loves
playing with the water and is not at all perturbed by being squirted. Mommy
sighs and puts down the squirt bottle.

Mommy goes over to the tree to try to disentangle Sammy from its branches.
Pine needles are very pointy! Between the pine needles and Sammy's claws,
Mommy's hands are quickly becoming bloody and Mommy starts saying bad words.
Daddy, on his way downstairs with a large bowl of popcorn, hears Mommy
saying bad words, quickly sizes up the situation, and decides that caution
is the better part of valor. Daddy heads back upstairs to pop more popcorn.

Mommy finally manages to get Sammy out of the tree and sits down to try and
figure out a strategy for *keeping* Sammy out of the tree. Mommy sees
movement out of the corner of her eye and starts laughing. Daddy has tied a
string to the can of "Keep Away" and has lowered it down to the first floor
from upstairs (where he is safely out of the action). "Keep Away" is the
spray that people put on furniture to keep cats from scratching it.
Although all Mommy and Daddy's owners use their scratching posts and not the
furniture, Mommy has used this in the past to spray on electric cords to
keep Sammy from chewing them and it has seemed to work (since Sammy is still
alive and the cords are still intact).

Mommy takes a last big whiff of the delicious, heady scent of pine in the
house then starts to douse the tree with "Keep Away". Mommy sighs when the
smell of pine is finally overpowered by the smell of "Keep Away".

Mommy goes into her office to open the closet where she stores the Christmas
decorations. Mommy picks Sammy off of the boxes and sets her gently down on
the office floor. Mommy starts to pick up the first box then sets it back
down so she can pick Sammy off of the box and set her gently down on the
office floor. Mommy quickly snatches up the box before Sammy can spring
atop it again, but as she is lifting it, it suddenly becomes twelve pounds
heavier and Mommy drops the box to the floor where Sammy sits on top of the
box and grins up at Mommy wanting Mommy to "do it again!" Mommy cringes as
she hears the sound of breaking glass ornaments - ornaments that have been
in the family for generations. Mommy sighs. Oh well, it isn't a good idea
to use glass ornaments on a tree with a kitten in the house anyway.

Mommy finishes putting the boxes of ornaments on the sitting room floor and
goes upstairs to get the popcorn for stringing. Mommy tries to enlist Daddy's
help decorating the tree, but Daddy has wisely made himself scarce. Mommy
picks up the bowl of popcorn, gets her sewing kit out of the drawer, and
heads back downstairs to start making popcorn garlands.

Sammy, having smelled the popcorn, hops up on the sofa next to Mommy so she
can help herself to some. Mommy says, "No, Sammy, this is for the tree,"
and gently places Sammy on the sitting room floor. Sammy gives the tree a
dirty look for being greedy about the popcorn and hops back up on the sofa
to try to sneak a pawful from the bowl when Mommy isn't looking. Mommy
again reprimands Sammy and gently places Sammy on the sitting room floor.

Mommy sits, happily stringing popcorn for 20 minutes without being bothered
by Sammy before she becomes suspicious of this quietude. Mommy decides to
check on Sammy's whereabouts, but first lifts the string of popcorn, which
has been trailing down to the sitting room floor, up into her lap to check
her progress. Mommy is quite dismayed to see that the string of popcorn is
very, very short - not nearly as long as it should be for the amount of time
she has spent stringing kernels!

Mommy places the string of popcorn on the sofa with the end trailing down to
the sitting room floor and starts to rise from the sofa. Before Mommy can
finish rising, she sees a suspiciously large kitten paw emerge from beneath
the sofa, hook the string of popcorn, and draw the end of the string
underneath the sofa. When the string of popcorn emerges, it is minus one
kernel of popcorn. Aha, the sneak thief has been caught red-han, er,
red-pawed!

Mommy squats down to peer under the sofa and spies Sammy sitting amongst
dozens of half-eaten kernels of popcorn. Sammy protests that she is
innocent as she licks bits of popcorn from her whiskers, Mommy doesn't
believe her!

Mommy sighs and sits back down to resume stringing popcorn - this time
keeping the end of the string on the sofa where she can keep an eye on it.
Sammy, replete with popcorn, takes a short nap underneath the sofa.

After all the popcorn has been strung into garlands, Mommy gets up from the
sofa, stretches, and begins to unpack the boxes of ornaments. Sammy,
awaking from her nap, comes over to help Mommy unpack. Sammy jumps into the
first opened box and starts investigating its contents. Mommy, fearing cut
paws from broken ornaments, quickly grabs Sammy up and gently places her on
the sitting room floor.

Sammy, miffed about being rebuffed, runs over to grab one end of a popcorn
garland in her mouth then dashes out of the sitting room dragging the string
of popcorn behind her. Mommy, fearing that her hours of work will be
destroyed, takes off running after Sammy. Too late! The end of the popcorn
garland gets snagged on the doorway as Sammy streaks by, the string breaks
and kernels of popcorn are strewn across the bedroom floor. Mommy says very
bad words and detours to the hall closet to get the sucky monster. The
sucky monster eats all Sammy's hard-won spoils and tries to chase Sammy
under the bed. However, Sammy is not at all afraid of the sucky monster (or
anything else thanks to being spoiled rotten her whole life), and defiantly
hisses at the monster until it subsides and goes back into the hall closet.

Mommy goes back into the sitting room and places the remaining three strings
of popcorn garland on top of the mantle where Sammy can not get to them
(talk about closing the barn door after the horses have departed!). Mommy
goes back to unpacking the boxes of ornaments.

When Mommy has finished unpacking the ornaments she stops and looks around
at the tree decorations that are covering every surface in the sitting room
(Mommy is a bit daft when it comes to ornaments - never able to pass up a
sale on them).

Now Mommy is a bit (OK, more than a bit) obsessive-compulsive. Every
ornament is packed in its original box, every light on each string of lights
has been placed in its slot on its original cardboard holder, so there
should be no hassle with untangling lights or ornaments. HAH! Mommy has
not included the Sammy factor in her calculations of her decorating plan.

Mommy takes the lights out of their cardboard holders, plugs them in (the
only way to see the total effect of the lights as they are being draped),
and starts to put them onto the tree. Mommy catches movement out of the
corner of her eye and turns in time to see Sammy chewing in a brightly
flashing light. Mommy, horrified at the prospect of Sammy electrocuting
herself, quickly unplugs the string of lights and rushes over to remove
Sammy's mouth from glass bulb.

Mommy bellows at Daddy to get his arse downstairs so he can hold Sammy while
Mommy puts the lights on the trees. Mommy does not hear an answer from
Daddy and goes upstairs only to find that Daddy has fled from the house
(cowardly leaving a note on the kitchen table saying that he will be at the
store shopping for Mommy's Christmas present - yeah right - and he
conveniently forgot his cell phone at home!).

Mommy goes back downstairs and starts putting the strings of lights on the
tree without plugging them in first and just hoping that she gets them
fairly evenly distributed. Sammy continues to grab at the lights and Mommy
strings them faster and faster so that Sammy does not have the chance to
bite through the wire.

Mommy finishes stringing the lights on the tree and begins to put the
store-bought garland on. Of course Sammy is right there "helping" by
grabbing the end of the string of garland and running in circles around the
bottom of the tree. Mommy feels resistance in the string of garland, doesn't
realize that it is wrapped around the bottom of the tree, and gives a good
tug to try to free it up. The tree starts to tilt, the screws in the tree
stand dig holes into the soft tree trunk, and the tree, denied its support
from the stand, topples over onto the sitting room floor.

Sammy, delighted with this new game, jumps into the middle of the tree as it
lays on the floor and immediately becomes entangled in the strands of
lights.

Mommy comes very close to crying as she disentangles Sammy from the tree,
not-so-gently places Sammy on the sitting room floor, and tries to stand the
tree back up in its tree stand. Mommy realizes that the trunk of the tree
is too gouged up by the screws in the tree stand to ever stay upright as it
is, so Mommy lays the tree back down on the floor and begins to untangle the
garland and the strings of lights from the fallen tree. Mommy assesses the
situation and concludes that the tree will need shims placed around the
trunk in order to stay upright, so she heads to the garage and begins sawing
pieces of wood for that purpose.

After Mommy installs the shims at the base of the tree and manages to get it
to stand upright, she cleans up the spilled water from the tree stand,
refills the tree stand, and begins the frustrating job of untangling the
strings of lights and garland to get them off of the tree so she can start
from the beginning and get this darn tree decorated (it is now 7:00PM, Mommy
has been working at this task for 5 hours, and she is getting tired, hungry,
and cranky).

Mommy finally gets the lights back on the tree (again doing this while they
are unplugged so that Sammy does not electrocute herself by biting into the
flashing lights), and gets the store-bought garland strung on the tree. Now
it is time to drape the popcorn garland onto the tree, so Mommy fetches it
off of the mantle. Mommy is very hungry and contemplates munching a few
kernels of popcorn off the garland, but restrains herself for the sake of
the beloved Christmas tree. Sammy, however, is *NEVER* restrained and
manages to grab one end of the string to start chewing on a kernel of
popcorn.

Mommy grabs Sammy up, gets the garland out of Sammy's mouth, and rather
roughly places Sammy on the sitting room floor. Sammy, seriously miffed
about being denied her snack, jumps up onto the desk next to the tree and
gives it a dirty look, because she knows that somehow this nasty tree is to
blame for all her rebuffs by the, usually, compliantly solicitous Mommy.
Sammy is planning her revenge!

Mommy, blissful in her ignorance, begins to hang the ornaments lovingly on
the tree, pausing to smile at the "special" ones that bring back memories of
Christmases past. This one was first placed on the tree 31 years ago for
her daughter's first Christmas, that one 30 years ago for her son's, others
when each of the grandchildren gazed at the tree in wonder for the very
first time.

It is now 8:30PM, not even half of the ornaments have been hung, Daddy is
still not home from his "shopping" and Sammy has finally decided on the form
her revenge will take. Mommy has her back turned to the tree when she
suddenly gets that prickly sensation on the back of her neck that tells her
that Sammy is up to no good. Mommy turns around in time to see Sammy jump
from the desk top and fly through the air to land at the very top of the
tree.

Twelve pounds of flying kitten is just too much for the poor tree to
"stand" - pun intended (Mommy has to get *some* humor from the situation or
she'll go mad - OK madder). Mommy stands there, horrified, as the tree
slowly topples over to land on its side on the sitting room floor and she
winces as she hears the crunch of breaking ornaments. Mommy slowly sinks
down until she is sitting on the floor, puts her head in her hands, and
starts to quietly weep. Sammy walks over to Mommy, puts her paws on Mommy's
knee, and reaches up to lick a tear from Mommy's face. Mommy's heart melts
and Sammy is instantly forgiven.

Mommy sighs, wipes her eyes, takes a deep breath, then rises to pick up the
tree and remove all the decorations she had so carefully placed on it.
Strings of lights and garland are hopelessly tangled in the broken branches,
pieces of popcorn and ornaments are all over the sitting room floor, and the
water from the tree stand is soaking the carpet.

It is now 11:00PM, the tree is finally righted, and Mommy is getting weak
from hunger when Daddy arrives - purportedly home from his shopping
expedition. Daddy looks at the bare tree and says, "I thought you were
going to decorate the tree - what have you been doing all this time?" Mommy
contemplates the best way to commit murder, knife or gun, but then decides
that this would not be a good idea in a capital punishment state (although
she thinks a jury may understand the motivation in this case). Daddy sees
the look on Mommy's face, mumbles something about urgently needing to take
care of something upstairs, and quickly retreats to safety.

Mommy is in the middle of draping the remaining pieces of popcorn garland on
the tree when Daddy comes back downstairs with a plate of sandwiches and
some potato salad and Daddy is instantly forgiven. Sammy, smelling food,
runs toward the plate of sandwiches but stops short in amazement when she
hears a growl coming from Mommy's mouth.

After she is finished eating, Mommy resumes the decorating of the *(&%#&^%
tree. The popcorn garland is missing more than a few kernels, the lights
are all bunched up in clumps, the ornaments are haphazardly hung, but it is
now 1:00AM and Mommy doesn't really give a flying fig how the tree looks.

Daddy has lit a fire in the fireplace and brought some eggnog for Mommy in
an attempt to atone for his foul desertion (he dared come home without a
shopping bag and smelling suspiciously of a local bar). Finally, at 3:00AM,
the tree is decorated and Mommy awaits her reward for all her hard work as
she stands back and instructs Daddy to plug in the lights so that Mommy may
view the Christmas tree in all its glowing glory. The lights do not turn
on. Daddy nervously unplugs them and plugs them back in several times in
succession. Mommy is aghast. Mommy not-so-quietly goes into total
meltdown. Daddy retreats upstairs. Even the unshakable Sammy leaves the
room. Mommy walks over and begins to throttle the tree. As she shakes the
offended vigorously back and forth, the tree lights suddenly spring to life
(in self defense) and Mommy stops trying to kill the tree.

Mommy backs off slowly with trepidation of jostling the lights back on
again, but the lights remain shining brightly. Mommy sighs, puts her
favorite Christmas album into the CD player, throws another log onto the
fire, and pours herself a large glass of eggnog. Daddy, hearing the strains
of Christmas carols, cautiously reenters the sitting room and then smiles at
the decorated tree. "This is the best one yet!" he exclaims, as he does
every year, "You've outdone yourself!!" Mommy, looking at the tree with its
Sammy-induced injuries, knows that he is lying, but at this point she'll
take what she can get. Sammy, having forgotten about Mommy's wrath, runs
back into the sitting room ready to play some more. Daddy promptly picks up
Sammy and takes her upstairs with him so the Mommy can sit on her sofa and
admire her Christmas tree - he knows she needs at least a few minutes of joy
before Sammy starts her own redecorating of the tree.

Happy Holidays you guys - you're a great set of listeners and have helped
Mommy get through her first seven months of Sammy!

Hugs,

CatNipped