We finally put up our Christmas tree yesterday evening.

Our kitten immediately discovered the tree and its associated low-hanging danglies.  Hey, we have a five-year-old in the house.  This means we have lots of low-hanging danglies, all clustered together.

All within very tempting reach of our monstrous, lovable kitten.

So the poor kitten is banished to the bedroom during the daytime and when everyone's asleep, and is only allowed out while people are out and about the living room.

What we need is a SuperSoaker.  Or CatScram.  Or a helluva lot more patience.

As soon as I arrived home & released the problem child from the bedroom, he made a beeline for the tree.  He doesn't climb it--thank heavens for small favors--but those ornaments at the bottom are like fresh wildebeest to a starving lion.

Anyway, here are the fruits of our efforts.  Note the clumping of ornaments within easy reach of OmegaDotter.

The Christmas spirit is just barely beginning to stir in OmegaMom's cold, stony heart.  The local law enforcement toy drive, lacking its normal pack-'em-up auditorium space, talked with the director of our department, who offered our cavernous hallways as an alternative.  So the past few days, we have been inundated in festive music, happy volunteers, and large heaps and mounds of donated Christmas toys.  While there's a certain amount of discomfort associated with this--making your way through cops and kids to get to the ladies' room, for instance--it just makes me feel all warm-n-fuzzy.

Most of the gifts are either purchased or delivered or on their way.  One hopes they aren't "on their way" routed through Denver.  When we arrived home from tree shopping last night, some quick maneuvers on my part and OmegaDad's part distracted the dotter from the huge box standing by our front door which had "Barbie Jammin' Jeep", with pictures, displayed all over it.  OmegaDad managed to sneak said large (did I mention it's humongous?) box into the garage after the dotter went to bed.

The last picture, while unflattering to me (I think I'm sticking a grim jaw out while deciding where to place an ornament, the comfy-but-unfashionable turtleneck is actually one of OmegaDad's, so is very large on me, and that butt...sigh), shows--very vividly--the bottom-heaviness of the decor.

So very, very tempting to a small cat...

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