First time cat owner. Will the cat wreck my Xmas tree ?

[Fakepower]

And if so is there anything I can do to prevent this ?

No lametta strands. You don't want sparkly Disco Poo in the litter tray.

No precious ornaments made of glass and spun gold costing sixty quid a pop. Although if you spend that on a single ball on a string, you might deserve all you get.

Lights get wrapped around the tree first to avoid dangly bits.

If it's a real tree, cover the surface of the pot. Nobody wants to find out he's got a bit confused and thinks this is now his seasonal toileting arrangements.

Tie the tree down/up/sideways.

If you don't tie the tree down, no fluffy robin or dove shaped decorations. Or jolly mice with Santa hats.

When decorating, have the tinsel in a cat sized box for the Annual Advent Tinsel Cat Photo. You may be allowed to take some of it for the tree if you ask the cat nicely, but don't count on it.

Get children to make decorations. No dangly bits of wool, but lots of brightly coloured card in assorted shapes. Looks good and the cat can't break those. He can also peep out from behind them for photos.

Do not be fooled by him pretending to not be interested. You'll go to bed thinking all is well, only to find chaos in the morning. You've seen the Tom & Jerry Christmas cartoons, haven't you?

Place non breakable / old ornaments near the bottom. Secure the top of the tree to a curtain rail or picture rail. Get ready with the camera 😎

I've had four cats, none of whom has ever been remotely interested in Christmas trees. My parents' beloved 17 year old cat who died this summer was a perfect angel until he was 15, at which point he pulled the tree down two years running.

To clarify, you did mean you tie the tree up, didn't you?

Not that the alternative hasn't occurred to me in the past, mind.

I've had 7 cats. 1 is currently 8 weeks old so we've got an interesting Christmas to come 🤣
Out of the others 3 have never been interested but they were all older when we had them.

The ones we had as kittens climbed it for a few years. One will be 4 this year and last year she didn't find it quite as interesting as other years. But she did dive in it from 6 foot away a couple of times

Don't have tinsle. They don't digest that very well 🤣

Our first kitten used the earth in the stand as a litter tray.
It took us a few days to work out where the smell was coming from.

Mine are not the slightest bit interested in the tree, other than to hide/sleep behind it.

That said I did have a cat before who used to remove all the baubles from the lower branches and chase them around the house. I had to replace my glass baubles for wooden or soft toy type decorations for the lower branches.

You won't know what type of cat you have until you put the tree up.

Our first family cat used to climb up the tree to the very top and hang on until the whole thing fell over. We’d stand it back up and exactly the same thing would happen. In the end, dad used to put a hook in the ceiling and tie it up.

Kittens were around 6 months old when they first saw a tree. They’d sleep in it but weren’t destructive.

The dog would get the lights tangled round his neck and wander around aimlessly dragging the tree behind him.

I don’t have any pets now and it’s stupid things like this that I really miss.

My cat adores the Christmas tree - it's literally her climbing frame indoors! She will climb it, chill in it and bat baubles about 🤣. Thankfully she's small, so she doesn't bring it down! Also loves putting the tree up and all the fun that brings!

It depends on the cat. The two we had growing up were on a mission to tip the tree over and 'kill' the fairy. My parents had to duct tape the tree in place.

We have two that are spectacularly unbothered. They've never tried to climb. They've batted the odd bauble at the bottom on very rare occasionally but lose interest quickly. Empty delivery boxes on the other hand...

Sorry NRTWT but just go with the flow and enjoy every daft thing your cat may entertain itself with involving your tree. It's joyous. They don't do it for ever and now mine have gone I so miss the laughs (disappearing up the chimney is far more worrying)..

He was just such a naughty boy. We put the tree up without baubles and within a day managed to get the branches off. Luckily we have it anchored to the wall so it was listing but still upright.....just

We replaced it with a wall to ceiling cat tree, and as it was his only Christmas he didn't have chance to get used to having a tree

The following year we had twin kittens so didn't put the tree up but had a twig tree.. they tried to eat the bulbs