Retrospective: Christmas in the New House with Pippin

Pippin loved Christmas. It was his favorite time of the year. And this is very odd because you'd think a cat who disliked new things would not like the sudden rearrangement of the house with decorations and Christmas trees and so forth. Perhaps it is because Christmas was always my favorite time of the year, too, and he picked up on my enthusiasm for it.

This year we were in a new house, and I got to decorate the whole thing. I was very enthusiastic about it, too, getting decorations and making something christmas-y in every room.

Thanks to a monetary gift from my parents, I was able to get a tall tree.

The new tree, post-lights and pre-decorations

This was Pippin's favorite place to be during Christmas time. He absolutely loved being under the tree, especially when there were wrapped presents. I always made sure to give someone a calendar so there would be a nice flat present for him to lie on, as he wanted to guard the presents thoroughly and that meant lying on one of them.

In fact, he would get rather put out with us for opening the presents on Christmas day, and we'd always have to distract him by tossing the bows to him to play with. Otherwise he'd lie glowering on the flat present and refuse to move. 

I think he was really just playing along, though, because he would always let himself be adequately distracted by the glittering bows being tossed on the floor for him to play with.

The living room, decorated.
See Pippin with laser eyes under the tree?

One of Pippin's favorite parts of Christmas was the wrapping of the presents. On a Saturday before the 25th, some time when I had all the presents purchased, I would sit down and wrap them all. I'd start with a large pile beside me unwrapped, the wrapping paper in front of me, and proceed to move all the presents from one side to the other, wrapping as I went.

Pippin loved to help. And he was actually helpful in many ways. Sometimes he would lie on a corner of the wrapping paper as I was trying to unroll it to cut it, and since without his weight it would persist in rolling itself back up, it was helpful to have someone pin it down. If he wasn't in the mood I'd usually end up using a present to anchor the corner.

The unwrapped presents are beside him.
I'd gotten organization units for myself
and he is making sure they fit a cat correctly.

When I'd wrap presents, I would often toss him the scraps of wrapping paper that one always ends up with, and he would play with them like he was a tiny kitten again. Later I'd have to go over the floor and pick the discarded scraps up and throw them away, because they were (apparently) only fun once.

And he absolutely loved scissors. He always wanted to watch very closely when I was cutting something. Too close. Sometimes I'd have to turn my back to cut something when he was trying to get his whiskers trimmed inadvertently! But luckily for the harmony of the two of us, most wrapping paper can be cut with scissors without actually closing them; you just run the open blade along the paper, and as it reaches the join of the scissor blades, it slices apart quite nicely.

The baby tree from old times.

I already had a tree for my room back at my parents' house. Since I didn't have the space on the floor to put a big tree, what I had was a little four-footer than I'd put on a card table. (I could put stuff under the card table; I can't put the same stuff under a big tree. Thus why I had room for the table but a not a big tree.)

In the new house I decided the little tree would go on the desk in the pink room (which also gets referred to as the guest bedroom). Pippin had long ago that year discovered that the desk was right at window height and perfect to lie on and watch the world go by. In fact, that was his favorite place in the entire house to spend the mornings.

I'm lucky he liked Christmas trees and being underneath them, because far from "destroying" his favorite spot by putting a tree on it, complete with tree skirt, I had enhanced the entire situation.

Smug and happy on the tree skirt

Although I didn't quite put two and two together (as usual) when I bought that tree skirt. It's, well, a lovely velvet fuzzy deep blue. And he's a lovely orange and white. And the stars are sparklies sewn onto the tree skirt, so I can't wash it and I can't vacuum it. It looks much lighter in color now, after all those years of Pippin spending a month on it every year. (I get out "christmas" the day after Thanksgiving).

Makes him look like an angel cat,
don't you think?

And he never once, his entire life, played with any ornaments on the tree save those he was allowed to play with. I put the cat toy ornaments on the bottom of the tree, and it was a game all Christmas season. He'd take them off and leave them under the tree for me, and I'd put them back up each time he took them down. There were several, and he didn't always take them all down each day. Just one or two, randomly chosen. Or perhaps he had a pattern or reason for choosing the ones he did, but it always looked random to me!

2009 (two years later)
Pippin put up with so much from me ...

2011 Christmas Day:
Looks like someone is sleeping in!

Another Christmas task that delighted Pippin was making Christmas cards to send. I do so love sending and getting cards. I have the whole thing worked out like an assembly line; card, short Christmas letter (kind of like this blog only a whole year condensed into one "post"; stamps, envelopes, address labels, and return address labels.

2012: Pippin helping with the assembly process

Pippin loved to help. Although he usually wasn't helpful except by being good company. Often I had to lift a leg or a tail and yank a card or paper out from underneath. A bit like the trick of pulling a tablecloth out from under a tea set and leaving the plates and cups unharmed! He would eventually get tired of this and move ... generally not far and onto the set of paper/cards/etc that I needed next!