Last year I was brave and spontaneously bought myself a little artificial Christmas tree. Although my furry brats are no youngsters anymore, they still know how to take down one or the other thing, especially Ponder in one of his lonely races when he has his five crazy minutes.
It actually went fine. The tree didn't fall and only two ornaments mysteriously left their spots for a short while. The nice thing about my wire knit stars, however, is that you can bend them back. It's a little sad for me that I can't use tinsel, but I guess I can't have everything.
While we are singing "O Christmas tree" ... where does the Christmas tree come from?
Now that is actually a tradition that I knew to be originally German. It was not unusual in different cultures to bring evergreen into the houses, but the first written record of a Christmas tree that still exists is from 1527 although it's possible that there was an earlier one which can't be proven anymore, though.
Since the 1750s the Christmas tree was mentioned more and more often. In the 19th century the custom had spread to Austria, then New England, England, France, Italy, The Netherlands, and Russia.
At first trees were decorated with sweets, apples and nuts some of which were painted in silver and gold. The legend goes that a glassmaker in Lauscha, a town which is still known for its glass art and Christmas ornaments, couldn't afford apples and nuts for his tree and made them from glass instead. True or not, the first written record of glass ornaments is in an order book from 1848.
Nowadays many of us can't imagine Christmas without a tree, may it be big or small, real or artificial. After all Linus van Pelt taught us that even the saddest little tree just needs a bit of love ... ;-)
"I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It's not bad at all, really."
Using a fake Christmas tree has not stopped my cat brats from playing with it. Tux shinnied up the tree his first Christmas (last year I used glass ornaments), and Loki spent significant amounts of time last year lying on the branches and smirking at me. He was still a kitten. Now that he is a 17 pound, full-grown cat, I am praying that he will realize that a well-behaved adult kitty does not climb fake Christmas trees. Oh, and I think I do have glass ornaments this year. We'll see how many survive.
ReplyDeleteToday Ponder tried again to steal some of the "pineapple slices", but was stopped mid-action. The tree seems to be too small to make him try to climb it.
DeleteLet us know how your tree and ornaments fared this year!
Your tree is lovely Cat. Cricket used to pull things off of the tree, but she has left it alone the past few years. She mainly just lays under it.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I have been adding more ornaments since, some of them I got in a swap with our Chimpy and I made some more myself today.
DeleteI guess I will be needing a bigger tree eventually, let's talk again then about Da Ponder.
Good Cricket girl! Catrina doesn't get near it, I suppose?