Christmas Trees

Laylalou

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Sorry is this is in the wrong spot, but I wasn’t sure where to post it.

This is our first Christmas with a cat! We normally get a real tree and then I realized that may not be safe. Any advice on getting a real Christmas tree or not?

If it helps we don’t have a large house and our cat has free reign of it, so she will be where are tree will be.

Thanks!
 

susanm9006

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There are some dangers with real trees especially if the cat tries to eat the needles or branches . Artificial trees are a little safer for this reason.

Fortunately mine have always been more interested in climbing the tree or undecorating it than they have been in eating it. If they are climbing the tree you need to anchor it to furniture to keep it from tipping

Christmas tree water is also dangerous to cats so keep the reservoir fully covered.

No tinsel - they will eat it and get sick from it. Usually they leave lights alone but watch for chewing.
Put your sturdiest ornaments on the lower branches so you lose fewer when they pull them off.
 

Animal Freak

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First, I would like to say that the cat in your profile picture is quite beautiful. She has a very sweet face.

Second, I don't know anything about real trees, but I wish you luck with a tree at all. Some cats are worse than others, but they're usually pretty inquisitive. Ornaments are like wonderful, dangly toys to them and a tree can be the perfect thing to climb. I will say, if I brought a real tree in it would drive my cats crazy. One in particular who'd be trying to eat it. We gave up on trees in general though. It was our choice. Our cats aren't terrible, but with just the two of us it was more work than it was worth.

I'd say you should put it up when you'll be home to supervise though.
 

1 bruce 1

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I am not wanting to be a downer, but we gave up on trees in any areas the cats hang out, years ago.
It wasn't an issue of safety for them, but safety for everyone because they loved knocking glass ornaments around and breaking them (this was a kitten) and made nests in the tree. A pup we had at the time would bring me shards of glass ornaments (!) and it just became one holy mess.
In the next few days, we'll have a nice tree in the lobby and anywhere the cats don't go and aren't allowed in.
We decorate our place HIGH with garland and with lights, and have tin or plastic looking Christmas decorations that can't be shattered if a cat knocks them over.

Lots of people have cats and trees and make it work. I was a kid with one of those Christmas trees that was about 900 feet high and we had a lot of cats. We hung ornaments high and out of reach, our cats were curious but didn't really cause a scuffle. If you love having a tree, don't give up on the idea. Just use your head, maybe shut the cat out of the area the tree is in if you're going to be gone, and you'll be fine. :)
 

LTS3

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sabrinah

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I've always been very lucky with my cat. We've had both real and fake trees with minimal issues. She usually rubs against the tree right when it's put up, decides getting poked in the face isn't fun, and that's the end of it. Only a handful of ornaments have been lost to her over the years and it's not generally because she plays with them, but rather they would get knocked down when she walked under the tree. The easy solution to that is just not to put ornaments or lights low on the tree. The bottom foot of branches is left bare. All expensive or ornaments are towards the top, and the cheap stuff is at towards the bottom. It can be possible to have a perfectly nice tree if you have the kind of cat that allows it.
 

Kflowers

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There are a lot of wonderful non-breakable ornaments - Styrofoam (remember elementary school and gluing ribbon to Styrofoam balls and the kid who tried to eat them? Bet she invented rice cakes.) Soft stuffed dolls with angel wings. Make your own ornaments from construction paper, cardboard and cover with wrapping paper, or aluminum foil. Don't use the metal hooks to hang them on the tree, those are terrible if eaten, so are twist ties. Little pieces of sting an inch or less. Or if you've made the cardboard one, punch a hole in the top of the ornament and slid it on the branch/ sprig sticking out of the branch.

Or just use kitty toys - stuffed mice come in Christmas colors.
 
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Laylalou

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Thanks for all the replies! Looks like we will lean towards a fake tree this year, just don’t want to take any chances. We have to have a tree because I have still have younger children. I already don’t hang lots of glass ornaments because of my human children, so no issues there.

Thanks again!
 

Kflowers

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I'd also suggest, annoying ain't I?, that you avoid strings of popcorn, and decorations made of food whether it's varnished or not.
 

PushPurrCatPaws

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We haven't yet tried using a real tree since we've had our latest cat. Milly's too wild and I have a lot of antique ornaments that have been passed down in my family. She'd smash them, :sigh:


If we ever do get a tree for any upcoming Christmas, it would have to be a fake tree as Milly has feline asthma/ allergies and the tree sap would definitely trigger her cough attacks.
:(

:evergreen:
 

Starblaize

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In the past, I used a crap ton of plastic ornaments w/ plastic hangers on an artificial tree. I used lights but never a garland. I'd find a handful of ornaments on the floor that the cats managed to knock off. This year, I'm not doing a tree. I have a large lighted snowflake for the picture window and that'll be it for this year. I have six month old kittens.
 

jcat

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We got an artificial tree nearly two decades ago because our cat at the time couldn't resist real ones. He also used to strip the tree of ornaments every night, so they were all replaced with more or less unbreakable ones made of wood, cloth, resin, or pewter.

Mowgli isn't quite that bad, but he likes to get under the tree and shake it or dig his claws into the base.
 

amethyst

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Just another suggestion, if you can, anchor the tree to the wall. Even if it's a fake tree and has only cat safe ornaments a tree falling on the cat can still hurt it physically and/or mentally. When some of my cats were kittens I just put the tree in the corner of the room so I could feed a rope from one wall to the other. You don't even have to put holes in the wall, just use some Command hooks.
 
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