My old cat, Pumpkin, lived in an Ikea shopping bag for a week. No, this isn't a heart-warming story about how I found a tiny kitten in an Ikea bag on the means streets of Honolulu (Pumpkin was adopted when I lived in Hawaii) and brought her home to her forever home. The bag was in my apartment and she decided to live in it for a week. Pumpkin was the kind of cat who enjoyed boxes and waited patiently for a moment like an empty Ikea bag to come her way. She would leave the bag to eat, use the litter box, and take up far more space on the bed than an eight pound cat should take. But if it wasn't one of those three things, she was in the bag. I moved it around the apartment a few times. That had zero impact on her situation; she moved with her bag. For reasons known only to her, the week ended and she decided the bag was over. She resumed her "normal" life of living on top of the cable box. Cats are special and we don't deserve them.
My current cat, Keely, also enjoys an Ikea bag and had short term love affair with living on my bed but under a garment bag from the dry cleaning service I used to use. I thought he looked like a solider in a tent writing letters home to his beloved.
He prefers his cat bed (I know!), lounging on a dining room chair, or using the draft blocker as a pillow by the sliding glass door. He does like to sit on my lap at precisely 4 pm each day, but only if we follow a set of rules he established when he decided I was okay enough for him to sit on my lap. Cats are weird. You can imagine my surprise when Keely found a new napping/sitting location this past weekend.
He lives under the Christmas tree.
Before we examine Keely's latest thing, there are a few things you need to know about me and Christmas:
- I have not put up a tree of any sort since 2013. That year, it was a book tree, so I'm not sure if that counts.
- I did have a tabletop tree the following year, but that doesn't count. I used little earrings as decorations and sneezed whenever I was close to it.
- I love Christmas decorations, but I hate putting them up. In fact, I once planned my visit home for Christmas to avoid decorating the tree. My family knows this, and now waits or holds back ornaments so I have to do something.
- My preference for ornaments is the weirder the better. I once decorated my parents' tree with the theme of "Obscure Presidents" because they have a collection of White House ornaments and who doesn't want a tree where Chester A. Arthur is the focal point?
For whatever reason, I have fully embraced Christmas this year. Not only did I put up a tree...I put it up the day after Thanksgiving. This from a person who once wrote
an open letter to Christmas decorations up before Halloween. I also bought eggnog and holiday themed pajamas (with dinosaurs, but still). I don't know me anymore either.
I also decided to channel my Grandma K and make some ornaments, finally putting my abundant sequin collection to use. I also embroidered a few ornaments and was delighted to receive some handmade ornaments in the mail from my friend and her son. Target seemed to sense my need this year, featuring a line of ornaments that can only be described as "1965 Called and it Wants Christmas Back." I am here for it.
And then Keely started living under the tree. At first, he mostly focused on rubbing his little face on everything and trying to eat the plastic branches, but then he really settled in. Sometimes, he likes to be out front like a tree guard. Other times, he lounges at the back of the tree against the wall. He naps, he watches the lights, he chills. He never bats at the ornaments. He never tries to climb the tree. I suspect he knows he weights more than the tree, so staying on the ground is the smart choice. He just snuggles into the tree skirt like it's his job. This is same tree skirt I used to wear over my clothes when I was a kid and we decorated the tree. The blinking star on top of the tree, which was an early addition to my parents' enormous holiday decoration collection (think foil star from the mid-1970s), seems to mesmerize him.
Like Pumpkin, I don't really know why Keely has decided to live under the tree. He tends to come out more since he really enjoys the sun by the sliding glass door, but he spends about 75% of his time during the day under or near the tree (he spends his nights sleeping on my legs and getting annoyed when I move). He's not great at hiding, so maybe this is an attempt at practicing his hiding skills. Maybe he's trying to reclaim some of his hunter/I'm the descendant of wild cats essence. Maybe that tree skirt is just really comfortable. Maybe Keely realizes we all need a little festive holiday cheer, and who doesn't smile when a chonky cat sleeps under a tree?
Reminder: Show your good citizenry! Check out this post for the details of my Be a Good Citizen Project. Use this link to complete a short questionnaire on your good citizen-ing. The deadline for submissions has been extended until then end of the year. I'm like the Oprah of rewarding good citizenship: "You get a piece of original art! And you get a piece of original art.
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