Breaking Cat News by Georgia Dunn for December 09, 2019

One of many reason I don’t have an artificial tree.

while it’s not a smile, at least Lupin’s not angry or sulky today

Ah, yes. My family has one of those assembling Christmas trees. =3 IMO, pretty convenient, all things considered. Sure, assembly is a pain, but the rest is good – it stores easily, you don’t have to water it, no smell, dropped needles are few…

Granted, I never had a natural one in my family, but it really seems more economical and everything. Plus, that one tree can become a tradition. =3

I understand Lupin’s confusion. I don’t like seeing trees of any kind taken apart. I don’t like knowing that it is even possible!

Nature is NOT symmetrical! Something is “unholy” when people try to make it look like it is.

My family has always had an artificial tree – my mom and I are horrifically allergic! (I once spent an evening babysitting for a family with a live tree; I was a wreck by the time the parents got home, fortunately I wasn’t driving myself back.) We used to have a tree that you had to snap every. single. branch onto, which took forever and always bit everyone’s fingers at least once – the easy-assemble ones are wonderful!

I wish I could have a real tree, but my allergies won’t tolerate the real thing. I live two doors away from a Christmas tree farm!

Panicked Puck in the lower right-hand corner. That face! XD

Getting a 9+ foot tree, delivered, is getting very costly (I have not been able to do the job for 10-15 years). But if time comes I can’t do a big tree, I would rather move to a smaller tree than an artificial one.

It’s obviously not a Vegas Fir! Elvis, do NOT go outside to investigate whether all trees come apart!

The horrors! It’s a fake tree! The horrid hyoomans have definitively destroyed all the glorious greenery on god’s green earth and fake trees are the only ones left! The horrors. The HORRORS!

We keep ours in a big green bag in the shed. Come December we pull it out and set it up in the living room. Christmas trees, or fir trees, whatever, aren’t native here.

How did the boys think trees appeared? Have they ever seen a tree grow or hatch from an egg or something? Of course not. They look outside, see trees, and that’s it. Trees are just there. How did they get there? People put them together, as they can see right in front of them.

Apply logic and observation, boys. Otherwise you are doomed.

The cockroaches have spread from BCN to Snow Sez!

https://www.gocomics.com/snow-sez/2019/12/09

We should all get Tommybaums.

Christmas is full of confusion and plastic trees. (They’re the only ones safe-ish from Cats.)

Elvis’s reaction to this is probably the most hilarious thing I’ve seen in a while.

I have always preferred natural trees, but have come to the conclusion that it’s wrong to kill a tree just for a few weeks of personal gratification. Not to mention dry needles around the cats is no bueno. So we have gone over to the dark side and invested in an assembled type. So far so good, except my Lily is thinking about climbing it which, of course, will come crashing down in the dead of night.

The first time a kitten sees a Christmas tree in the house, be the tree real or artificial, the first thought that immediately enters the kitten’s head is “For ME?!” (Yes, much research went into establishing that as fact.)

Cats eat the needles of natural trees and are hurt bad. Get some pine spray. Also, tree farms are not so good for wildlife. Pine incense?

This must be the People’s first year with an artificial tree. Why else would the cats freak out about it?

I can’tblame them for going artificial. Even if you choose a replantable one, you’ll still be vacuuming up needles well into august.

I thought Elvis would have been the reporter questioning whether or not they’re living a lie. The answer is clearly “yes.”

Does the People’s tree look slightly …. palm tree-esque?

In the 80s a neighbor in Florida had a large artificial tree and decked it out in fake birds made from real feathers dyed in pastels, very tropical. Her cats admired it, too. It lasted less than a day.

Oh, those beautiful blue Siamese eyes in panel one.

The People certainly are enthusiastic about their fake, lying tree.

Everyone is so judgmental about the artificial tree. You have to remember that not everyone is able to have real trees.

I sort of wish I had an original artificial silver tree with the color wheel from the ’60’s. Those are very cool-kitsch nowdays.

We had a real tree growing up, but had an artificial after about 16 years old. We need to plant more trees and cut down fewer, in my opinion.

And you asked for pictures, go to intagram: rslay0204 – You will see our cats, my daughter the equestrian and my son the dancer.

My mom has used a faux fur for years. I could go for either myself. But less mess with the artificial and she has a cat. Also I always used to love all the chintzy trees on the tree lot in the Peanuts Christmas special.

Ok, being a person who stutters, it actually isn’t that hard to understand somebody who does stutter. It just takes a bit to say what I wanna say.

with the shortage of trees this year, in the NY area they average about $25 a foot.

It’s a do-it-yourself tree! I know the “real tree” purists will disagree, but I personally prefer the artificial trees. That way you only have to buy it once and then can proceed to use it again and again for however many years you want afterwards, it never “dies” or sheds needles everywhere, it’s always the perfect shape and perfect height every time requiring no trimming of limbs, and is even less risk as a potential fire hazard.

IMO, artificial trees have a lot of good points going for them. :) And they’ve been getting a lot more realistic in appearance these days…once you finish assembling them, of course.

I have a tabletop metal “tree” suitable for hanging small ornaments on. I keep it up all year and change the ornaments to suit the season. I’m rather fond of it.

Ah, yes, the holiday season. Also known as “ooh, pretty, sparkly things dangling from this object I can climb into!” season.

I wonder if her cats use the tree like a giant toothbrush as well as ours?

I have an artificial Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tree.

It’s good enough for me.

Reminds me of the alternative rock song Sharkey’s Day by Laurie Anderson:

“They’re growing mechanical trees. … They grow to their full height. … And then they chop themselves – down.” :)

Maybe Beatrix can shed some light on the annual tree building ritual.

Thanks to my Vlad and Sebastian, my artificial tree now looks more life like (branches not straight). I’m not putting it up until the weekend before and take it down the weekend after. Vlad likes to try and eat it.

The solution to keeping your artificial tree upright in the face of determined mountaineering kitties:1. If it’s an “old fashioned” artificial w/ a standard base, instead of using the feet it comes with, get a live-tree stand. Get some Quikrete or similar. Fill the base with it and sink the bottom part of the trunk into the concrete. Use a level to get it upright. Then when dry, assemble the rest of the tree as normal. 2. If it’s one of the newer, pre-lit trees with an electrical hub at the base and you can’t do that, drape 3-4 large bags of plain ice melting rock salt (NaCl, not a chemical alternative. OR if an alternative, a pet-safe one) over the legs. Put one inexpensive tree skirt under the bags. Cover with 1-2 more tree skirts to minimize cats scratching at the bags (though they are pretty tough). The skirt under the bags can also just be a sheet or pillowcases. It’s just there incase claws do manage to penetrate the bags!

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

My aunt lived in Phoenix, and she put up and decorated a tumbleweed every year.

I grew up with a fresh tree every December. I ended up having to decorate the dang thing then take it outside on New Years to decorate it for the birds. It reached the point where I hated the whole process. One year I was at Lowes and saw a tiny Charlie Brown tree, a living Norfolk pine, sad and on sale for a few dollars. I bought it and babied it for years until it was five-feet tall. It was in a large wheeled-pot which I’d roll in from the outside before the first frost, and it became the living family Christmas tree. After my mom died, and my siblings took over the hosting, I stopped decorating it and didn’t replace it when it died. My decorations, these days, consists of putting wreathes on the doors and nothing else.

I have the most realistic artificial tree ever. It sheds needles all over the floor just like a real one.

Does anyone remember real trees and shag carpet?

BLASPHETREE!! That thing is not living, it is VILE! IT MUST BE SWATTED AT! ..made with petroleum products? EWWWWWWW… I’d rather have a renewable resource that smells great!

Botanical heresy.

Marnie Jameson’s article “New trends take root in artificial Christmas trees”:

https://tinyurl.com/MJArttreert1208

I too grew up with real trees, but converted back in the 90’s. The Big Gray Kitty hasn’t seen a Christmas tree for 10 years. It will be interesting if he remembers how he climbed and slept in it all those years ago. Now I just have to put it up to find out.

OT? Georgia, I may have missed something this year, but do you have a 2020 calendar available? Thanks and you really do incredible work with all the reporters coming around. . . . 8^)

Going to have to do that here pretty soon. Miss the days of going out and cutting down the perfect tree for us, something about six feet tall. The smell of the sap as we cut the tree down. Then standing the tree up in the house a decorating it. And the smell of spruce or fir filling the living room. Then laying under the tree and looking up at the ornaments and lights. Making sugar water and feeding the tree. The wrapped presents under a live tree just seemed so much prettier. As sick as it sounds, I even miss the needles and having to clean them up both while the tree was up and after it was taken down. No space for live trees like we used to do and the shorter live trees we just don’t buy, usually because of the cost. So three to four foot artifical for us now, something we put up on a tabletop.

My one concession to fake trees is that I spent my fifth Christmas in the hospital. My mom got a Charlie-Brown-chic fake tree for my hospital room. I woke up Christmas morning to find a manual typewriter underneath it, and I was perplexed, because how had Santa gotten into the hospital when it didn’t have a chimney? That tree decorated our living room every year until I went to college, when I absconded with it for my dorm room, and it continued as my tree until the Woman and I bought a tree together, at which point I returned it to my mom. She still has it, as far as I know.

So… This is my Tommybaum. You’d never guess she’s artificial.

The last thing I want to do is kill a tree to celebrate Christs birthday.

I just thought of a way we may be able to get new BCN readrs…what sat we all put up a Tommybaum and when people ask what it is we can point them to the Christmas Special and BCN!! This should work at home or at work… Just an idea, what say y’all?

I just LOVE the freaked out looks from Elvis and Puck! Yes, Puck, they can ALL come apart, but we really hope that most of them don’t. They take a long time for Mother Nature to put together and when they come apart they can land in some inconvenient places.

And trust me, I am assured by multiple reporters I’ve shared my home with that artificial Vegas Firs are just as climbable as the wooden kind.

Elvis’s eyes have expanded exponentially! That is a whole lotta big blue!!

OMC, Puck is totally a reverse Jack O’Lantern, how have I never noticed this before?!