Not a creature was stirring... thankfully.

Erich and I set up our tree early last week. We bought a real tree this year, cheating by going to Lowes to purchase it rather than at one of the many lots in the area. We probably paid more for the tree at Lowes, but it's a pretty Noble Fir, nearly perfectly even all the way around, and was convenient on a day that we were a bit tight on time.

Our tree is decorated with a mish-mash of ornaments from our childhoods, plus some others that we've received in more recent years from my mom or friends, plus others that we've bought ourselves for one reason or another. There's absolutely no theme to it. It's not designer-decorated. It's definitely a hodge-podge tree. :)



Noby's under the tree, checking out ornaments. He's been a bit hyper with the tree so far, but honestly not too bad. I've only had to collect maybe six ornmanets so far.

Gus has moved on from attacking the tree to relishing the crack-cocaine for all cats: tree water.



No real tree in a house full of cats is complete, after all, without cats drinking the tree water. It's the only water bowl they'd drink out of, if it were available 24/7 this month.

Setting up the tree was a bit of an adventure, however, and its tale is today's Holidailies entry...

Last year, we didn't put a tree up. We knew we'd be going to Pennsylvania for Christmas and didn't feel comfortable leaving a tree up for days on end with the cats unattended, particularly since Gus had managed to kill the Christmas tree the year before by literally body slamming it to death. So our ornaments were packed away in those fantastic Rubbermaid ornament boxes in our storage space for two years.

With trepidation, we began decorating the tree this year. Gus is now two and slightly past his completely crazy kitten stage, but he still gets "the rips" rather often and can do a ton of damage now that he's MonsterKitten. Add to that two nearly 5-month old kittens, and the tree is a recipe for disaster.

So to avoid some of the issues, we set up the tree in the sunroom, which has a door that can lock the tree away from frantic felines, yet is a glass door so we can still enjoy the sight of it while sitting on the couch. This gives us peace of mind when we're at work, too, because the cats are simply not allowed in the sunroom right now.

The super fragile and old ornaments that we didn't want to risk with kittens were kept wrapped in the ornament boxes. Everything else is either shatterproof or up on the tree high enought so as not to have to worry about them.

We have two boxes of ornaments. Erich was working through one box, and I was going through the other. These boxes have the cardboard compartments for ornaments, which I love. Out of habit, I still wrap everything in tissue paper and put them inside the cubbies, though. My parents had lots of those handmade beaded ornaments (with all of the pushpins), and to make sure they didn't come loose while carrying boxes, everything was well-wrapped.

I completed the first layer of cubbies and got to the lower layer. To my relief, it was mostly an old set of pink satin & lace balls that my parents had used on garlands going up the hallway stairs. Most of these balls were unwrapped. But in the center cubbie, I noticed a shredding of tissue paper that filled one single cubbie all the way to the top of the square.

"Erich, did you have some frustration with tissue paper when we packed these up?" I asked, intending to tease him about some inner tissue anger management issues, pointing at the cubbie.

Erich looked at it, confused, and said no.

I said something joking in return, but noticed he was looking at it quietly.

"You know, that looks like a mouse house," he said.

I stop smiling. Wait a minute... was this the box that had the broken snap lock on it? I thought.

I nervously took a dead twig from our branch scraps and poked it into the top of the tissue paper, and lifted up. Almost immediately, the tissue paper broke to reveal a pillowy, gauzy material that looked shredded and very... nestlike.

Oh. My. God.

Then I saw the traces of mouse in the bottom of the tub-- small mouse droppings. Honestly not many at all- whatever mouse was living in here must not have stayed too long. But enough to prove that yes, it was, in fact, a mouse house. Erich moved over, and pointed out that there were holes across the top of the cardboard cubbies.

"Let's get this tub to the kitchen now," he said.

A good idea, too-- because a couple of kittens were starting to get mighty interested in this tub and the smells of rodent that remained within.

We carried it to the kitchen, where Erich grabbed a set of cheapo tongs and a trash bag to start pulling out the nest. It quickly became apparent that the pillowy material was the remnants of one of the satin balls-- shredded into its softer, warmer form. About a half-dozen other balls were partially shredded, too, and had to be tossed out.

The majority of the balls, thankfully, were untouched and unstained. Erich put them aside in another box. Sometime before we pack everything up, I'll go over each of the balls with the rubber gloves, Lysol, and Nature's Miracle to clean them thoroughly. For the time being, the now empty box is out in the garage-- also to be Lysolled thorougly before we pack the ornaments away again.

*shudder*

It makes for interesting memories, though. That's for sure.