Christmas and the Kitty

I’m not a fan of Christmas and more than a little bit of a Grinchy Scrooge.  There are a number of reasons why Christmas isn’t one of my favorite holidays, actually, it is not even in my top 10, but I try to have some Christmas spirit for my husband and kids.  And for the kitty.  Our cat LOVES Christmas or at least the Christmas tree.  She’s an indoor cat who has the full reign of the house and our screened-in-porch.  During the hot summer months she’s out on our porch listening to the beautiful melodies of the cicadas and the birds.  In the cooler months she goes out there to watch the squirrels play in the leaves.  But when it is real cold, she only goes out when nature calls (her litter box is out there) and keeps to the warm house the majority of the time.  Once, a door was left ajar and she escaped into the great outdoors for a couple of hours.  I combed the neighborhood (lots of wooded acres) and thought we had lost her.  But thankfully,  she found her way back home.  She’s tried to venture out a couple other times but never made it very far.

One year when I was feeling less Grinchy than others, I crocheted a tree skirt.  I was pretty new to crochet at the time and found a free pattern somewhere.  I don’t know if it was the pattern or me (likely me) but the skirt turned out huge and really wonky!  It wraps around the tree one and half times and the edges are uneven.  I got my increases wrong and miscounted a lot.  But it is pretty and I made it so it comes out every year when ‘the great outdoors’ is brought inside.  Of course, because I’m a Grinchy Scrooge, ‘the great outdoors’ consists of a fake 6′ skinny tree, but to the kitty, it’s paradise.  As soon as the tree goes up and that crazy cozy crocheted tree skirt hits the floor, she’s on it and she stays there until December 26 when the tree comes down.