Hello sweet Baby and all these other precious fur babies! We opted to forego the tree this year too. Butters and Tonto are still horribly inquisitive, and we're also lazy so using "them" as the perfect reason for not climbing up in the attic and into the back recesses of closets to drag out the holiday decor. I honestly haven't missed it.

You know I was thinking of Butters when I posted. I didn’t know Tonto was naughty, too.😆

Anyway, you’ve been verrrry busy with other things. ☺️

Jilly, we also have a new kitten. He’s 8 months old and a climber. You could see from day one (when he was 6 months old) that he was plotting jumping on the counters as soon as he was big enough, which took about 2 weeks!

We haven’t put up a tree in years, but definitely wouldn’t try it now.

This is Charlie the day we got him.

Donna

PS - your kitty is beautiful!

Donna, Charlie is such a cutie … and yup, I see those mischevious kitten eyes. 😄😼

Congratulations, Baby! You've found such a wonderful home. Thanks for sharing this, Jilly. Each of the other kitties are adorable, as well.

Aww what a nice complement Jilly - thank you! I do love Christmas decor.

Thank you, Feathers! :)

Now that is one lucky little girl!!

I've been using a tiny, 3 foot tall fake tree for the past few years. It's about 1/10th of the work of a big tree, and still fills my room with that holiday feeling that a lighted tree does for me. Just something to consider for those of you who don't feel able to deal with a big tree anymore.

I too have a few special ornaments, and somehow my tiny little tree feels even more special, because everything on it means something to me. I love to sit in my dark room in the evenings and just look at the twinkle, and let it fill me with the happiness and memories of Christmas' from long ago.....

Yep, Butters is a little toot but so is Tonto. I mean ... the insolent self assurance here! 😄

Ally, that sounds so nice! :)

Ida, Mr Handsome is just admiring the cabinets. :D

Baby is adorable!

Congrats Jilly on Baby finding you! She's adorable.

No Christmas tree here. To be honest, I only put one up a handful of years after we bought a house and got tired of the effort when my husband had zero interest in helping. We don't have children and he doesn't care about the tree so I gave up. I do have a small ornament tree like Jilly's somewhere that I may pull out if we opt to host a small Christmas dinner. Regardless, I absolutely love seeing everyone's decorations and cats!

porkandham and prickly, she says to tell you thank you! :)

I really appreciate you all answering — I don’t feel so alone now with my treeless house.

Jilly, congratulations on your new Baby! Obviously she is very intelligent; she chose YOU.

Chinacat, thank you. 🥰

Love that neighbor ornament 🙂

And to clarify - the branches are Christmas tree trimmings scrounged at Home Depot

Thanks, carol. :)

No tree here. I'm Jewish! I had a tree about six years ago when we had a homeless youth live with us for 8 months. I wanted them to feel at home and loved during Christmas so got a small tree. Though I tried as hard as possible to be open minded, it just didn't feel like my home with a Christmas tree in it and I couldn't wait to get rid of it. I think they are very pretty in other people's homes, just not mine. :)

Baby is so gosh darn adorable. Glad you found each other!

Thank you, Kendrah!

That’s so sweet that you got a tree for your guest. :)

No Tree for us this year and it feels really weird. We moved to a much smaller house in May. Our artificial tree is way too big. We also are waiting for furniture and rugs to be delivered and blinds to be installed. It just seemed like a tree would be in the way. I didn't think I would miss it as much as I do. I may get a little one this weekend.

Your new Kitty is adorable.

Bethpen, I hope you find a smaller tree you like! My DD and son-in-law will be here Christmas Day, I’m going to put her little tree out for the visit.

They don’t have a tree up this year either because of their cats. :D

Jilly, a perfectly adorable cat. Baby is obviously having a great time exploring every inch of your home and she is one lucky cat.

Totally understandable that many of you have no tree. We are hosting family on Sunday before Christmas or else I might have let it gonthis year too. But DH wouldn’t hear of it either and was ready to get started the day after Thanksgiving. I put it off a few more days. He does help, mostly with getting it out, carrying the boxes of ornaments and putting it away.

Outside, thank you! She certainly does like to explore! :D

I’ll bet your tree is gorgeous. :)

We have three. One is orphaned in our smoke-damaged home, on the second floor landing where you can see it when you arrive. It is a fake one with very heavy flocked snow and white lights. I put it up for guests to see arriving around Thxgiving. This may be the end of it; cannot imagine cleaning fake snow.

Then I have a new fake flocked one I just bought. I was going to switch out the one onthe landing, because DH complains about its shedding. It is still in a box and I am not sure if I will use it.

Last but not least we have a real one here in our rental home, still on the back porch. I will host Mahjong this week so prob put it up before that.

Hugs, Mtn. It breaks my heart what happened. I can imagine how beautiful your tree on the landing looked … and know your rental house one will be, too. :)

I still remember your Connecticut ones, loved those! Such lovely natural trees.

Honestly, it's not a big deal. I was talking to my DH about it yesterday and he said he was surprised that I am not more upset about the disruption. My reply was that, at this point, my expectation is that everything will be put right.

I know that there will be something ruined that cannot be replaced, but that process has not yet started so for now all things seem possible. DH dubbed it "deferred aggravation" instead of "deferred gratification," LOL

I just saw this article and am in love with the trees….

O/T, I need this sofa in my life:

And these fabrics:

And this whole bathroom:

I don’t want this deconstructed chair, though. Remember when RH was selling them?

I want to stay there.

More:

https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/gallery/amanda-brooks-cotswold-cottage-christmas

Very interesting article, except they keep saying ”in” Long Island. My DH is from LI and people saying ”in” instead of ”on” is such a pet peeve of his. :D

The smaller trees wirk well for us, especially since i like multiple trees. Below is the sunroom tree in a large paper mache bowl. Vintage tinsel and scrap ornaments along with some victorian cut-outs.

We gave another tree like that one sitting on the old ice box in the great room decorated in silver ornaments and silver glittered stars. The bedroom tree is about 4 ft, in an old basket. Its flocked and has some of my vintage christmas postcards along with a few ”special” ornaments including a ”first year married” crystal bell. 😊

Haha, ignore my scraggly azaleas outside the window! I need to prune!!

Jilly i love the little tree in the bucket!!

Jilly I am in love with your new ”Baby” - keep scrolling back to look at her. Brings back such fond memories of my grammas cat ”Petou”

(pee-too) …same coloring!

So beautiful, Tina! I was hoping you’d post pics. :)

I just adore trees with meaningful ornaments.

You and Mtn are making me want a flocked tree someday!

Irish, thank you! :)

Petou is such a cool name!

I put a few pheasant feather round Christmas bulbs on my tree this year, and the one lowest on the tree is a total obsession with our dog. He doesn't bother it-he lays on his tummy with his nose up in the air and stares at it, sometimes for 30 minutes at a time I kid you not, and if you get close to him-he thinks you are going to take it or something and growls at us! It's actually quite funny if you could see it-but can't help knowing it is something instinctual he is experiencing.

Ollie, that’s funny — Baby has a toy with feathers on it, if I had a tree with them, it would be stripped in seconds. :D

The German Shepard puppy in 1996 was the hardest on our tree. She was about 9 months old Christmas. She punched holes in the angel ornament, chewed the birch bark canoe from the Smokies and chewed up I do not know how many plastic icicles that I replaced the tinsel ones with, lol. Things rapidly went to the top and the bottom of the tree was bare. I still have the same tree, the angel still has a hole in one wing, and I glued the canoe mostly back together.

Wow, Sherry!

DD’s dog is part German Shepard, part Huskie. Very smart and very vocal (not barking, but ”talking”). Cracks me up!

I'm sure lots of folks have seen the 'pet-proof' tree memes...😄

😂

Carolb, I think my Abby would easily take the tree on the left, and Squeak would disassemble that wired cage in no time. lol!

Baby is gorgeous. Those markings on her front arms....

This is Ivan. He got a 2nd level added to his cat tree. He shredded the curtains before we figured out what he wanted. He is sooooooooooo happy!

Nicole, Ivan is so handsome! Those eyes!

Party, Abby is a beauty, I love her markings!

Party, gorgeous cat, love her glamour shot.

No big tree this year for me and no cats to blame it on! Instead, I have 2 table top trees that I can grab the ambiance from. My DH has noticed, the missing trees, but not enough to do it himself.

We’ve always put up trees, but when our current dog, George, was a puppy we did make a small adjustment. I usually put glass icicles on our family room tree. George was 4 or 5 months old at Christmas and into everything! I could just see him biting them, so we left them off. I didn't put them on this year either, but I have no excuse other than I was terribly lazy.

Ahem. I feel that mischievious dogs also need representation.

BTW we have two dog beds. This is the smaller one.

ratherbesewing, your trees are gorgeous! I’d have no problem at all not having a big one if I had those!

(That sounds really dirty.)

I love love love that chest, too.

(I did it again.)

porkandham, we need to see George. The rule is: no talking about pets without pics. :)

Sue, I think widening the scope of this thread to include mischievous dogs is a good idea. Yours are adorable and there’s no way those two sweeties are ever naughty.

The difference with dogs and cats — dogs will sincerely apologize profusely, for days, while cats will just look you up and down, flick their tail, and tell you to mind your own business next time, if you know what’s good for you.

Jilly - Here you go! This is puppy George that first Christmas. I was wrapping presents on my kitchen peninsula and foolishly left the room for two minutes.

Oh my goodness! His expression! 😂

I love George. :)

What a perfect pose. Lol!

I am reminded of the year I baked gingerbread men cookies and hung them on the tree. Every evening when I returned from work, I would find one cookie on the floor and his head was missing. It took a while until I caught the cat that was knocking them off and eating them.

btw, my Abby has a magnificent tail that she carries high and curled over and across her body. She sometimes looks like a walking black fur hat from the Queen’s/King’s Guards. :)