This year is the year I've become convinced that Christmas is evil. I thought I had it bad last year when my cat, Spock, climbed the tree and knocked it over. This year was even worse, and the scary thing is that it again involved cats.
Christmas. What does the word evoke in you? Stress? Too much to do in too little time? Shopping that will deplete your wallet and max out your credit cards? A thousand little chores that will make your family's Christmas peaceful and magical and make yours into a hell of cleaning, baking, shopping, and entertaining? Yep, me too.
I've always wanted to create a perfect Christmas for my family. A Christmas that will see the presents bought and wrapped well ahead of time, a perfect meal complete with homemade cookies for dessert, a quiet glass of wine by candlelight next to the tree. Peace. Love. Joy. Yeah, right.
First, I never get the shopping done early. I refuse to do it any earlier than November and by then I'm so paralyzed by the oncoming truck that is Christmas that I put it off even more strenuously. Then, of course, by the time Christmas Eve rolls around, we have to make the rounds of Christmas Eve dinners and gift-giving at the relatives' houses. After eating two meals and enduring various and sundry family "personalities", we trudge home and throw the kids in bed. Then the real fun begins: last minute gift-wrapping! If my husband and I are not fighting by then, you know one of us is asleep. One memorable year we were still wrapping presents at 3 a.m. while watching "The Silence of the Lambs" on video. Not an ideal situation for two angry and exhausted adults.
Well, this year seemed like it was going to be a little better. I got the decorations out fairly early. I got the tree trimmed with no major mishaps. We actually budgeted for Christmas, so we weren't facing the annual February reality-check. What we didn't plan was the kittens.
My cat, Ivy, had a litter of five kittens about a month before Christmas. (In case you're counting, that's 2 cats of my own, another cat that I haven't mentioned, and five kittens. Yes, eight cats.) Ivy's a highly-strung, very protective mother. She had been known to attack the dog ferociously if she thought the dog was threatening her kittens. I got to experience her fury firsthand three days before Christmas.
I had been sitting in the recliner while the kittens chased each other around the living room. I got up and foolishly did not look before I closed the chair. The footrest came down on one of the kittens, who mewled loudly (but wasn't hurt). Before I could move, Ivy shot across the room and attacked my foot, biting, scratching and yowling wildly. By the time my husband got her off me, she had shredded the top of my foot, which was bleeding and swollen. I couldn't walk on it for days. I couldn't get a shoe on. And we had to have Ivy put to sleep. It was a wrenching decision, but one that we had to make. What if Ivy had gone after one of the kids? What if she had shredded someone's face instead of my foot? We couldn't even try to find another home for her because we weren't sure she wouldn't do it again. And though I thought that was hard, the worst was yet to come.
On Christmas Day, one of the kittens died in a freak accident right in front of our eyes. Merry Fucking Christmas. I took the tree down the rest of the day and vowed to put this behind me. I guess my first New Year's resolution was born right then: to make next year better than this year, to never have another Christmas like that again. It's a resolution I intend to keep.
Want to read the rest of my resolutions?
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