Every year, for the past dozen years or so, I have hosted holidays at our house for at least part of our extended family. I cook the turkey and the pies and a number of other items, but everyone would bring something as well. It’s always a bit of work but I enjoy having my family together. This year, however, my sister invited us to visit her house in Traverse City. So we packed up our family and headed off.

The trip was supposed to take 4 1/2 hours on Wednesday night, but between traffic, construction, a stalled car (not ours), and snow it took us 7 1/2 hours going. Coming back was much quicker – the normal time – thankfully!

Traverse City gets more snow than our area of Michigan, a beautiful sight except that all of the street signs were coated and unreadable. But the next day, Thanksgiving, saw the trees blanketed in glittering white. I’ve included a few glimpses of some pictures the boys took of the outdoors.

Saturday after returning home, we set out to put up the Christmas decorations as I mentioned yesterday. The only thing left was the big tree and a few outdoor trimmings. The tree sat bare until I could get the lights on yesterday, after which I began to put the ornaments on the branches. I completed most of my ornaments and planned to finish today. Then I would just had to wait on the boys to put their ornaments in place and top it off with garland, and we would be all set. (I buy the boys a new ornament each Christmas so that one day when they have their own Christmas trees they will already have something to get them started. Plus, each ornament is a reminder of an event or experienced that happened to them that year.)

Our Christmas tree is an artificial one that has been in my family for years. I had it part of the time growing up, and we inherited it from my parents. We’ve used it ever since. So the tree is old with a rather thin circular base. It’s a wonder that the tree has managed to stay held so well within the confines of the tree stand. We have also thought it interesting that none of the cats had ever tried to climb the tree.

Never, that is, until now…

Last night after I had gone to bed, Chris was still up doing homework when he heard a crash coming from the direction of the Christmas tree. He followed the sound and this is what he discovered.

Does Shadow look guilty? He should. He was waiting for someone to yell at him, but Chris grabbed the camera instead and caught the culprit examining his work.

This morning I came down intending to finish the decorating job to find the tree leaning against my bookcase and the camera on the kitchen table with a note to hit play to see the culprit. Tiger was totally innocent of this fiendish act. He was innocently searching for Chris’s laser pen in the living room, while Shadow tried to climb the tree in the family room. He managed to bring it down without breaking a single ornament, which is nothing short of amazing.

And today, Shadow has been especially lovey and has apologized to me several times, sitting on my lap at the computer, purring for all he’s worth. It’s a good thing, because I’m in the middle of making my Christmas wish list, and I was about ready to add – “new cat” – because the old one is pushing his luck! :)

Then again, it does make for some fun pictures and a good laugh. (But don’t tell Shadow I said so.)