Fun fact: Try hanging lemon- or orange-scented air fresheners in your Christmas tree to deter your cat from climbing it.
“Not again,” I grumbled as I watched our ten-month-old gray Tabby, Sergeant Tibbs, go through the heaving motions of coughing up a hairball. He’d padded out from beneath the Christmas tree to hunker down in front of me for the delivery of his gift. I groaned. Right on my family room carpet! Couldn’t he do that outside?
But this particular present wasn’t coming up easily, and Tibbs’ body undulated more forcefully with each larger heave. “Hmm,” I thought, growing nervous about his apparent difficulty.
Finally, after one last, huge contraction, our new family member managed to rid himself of the material causing his system so much distress. My mouth flew open and my eyes widened as Tibbs briefly investigated his undigested present: a golf-ball-sized wad of gleaming, partially chewed and salivated, multi-colored metallic Christmas ribbon.
“Oh, my! Chris, Parker, Cory!” I shrieked to my husband and sons as I bolted from my rocking chair to rescue the gooey gob from possible re-ingestion. The three sprinted to my side as I stared in shock at Tibbs, who gazed up at me with his innocent-looking, emerald eyes. Then he stood, licked his lips, quickly groomed his whiskers, and sauntered away.
“Look at this!” I demanded as I waved the ball in front of them. “This is what the cat just hacked up!” Three pairs of cornflower-blue eyes peered at the colorful, slimy wad, and three heads simultaneously snapped around to give me a horrified look. Then the raucous laughter started.
“It’s not funny,” I said. “He could have died!” Then I barked instructions. Within seconds, Chris, Parker and I were on our hands and knees, scouring the floors for every miniscule ribbon scrap, strip or curl. Cory rushed to his computer to do an Internet search on a cat’s attraction to ribbons. Over a lifetime with five cats, I’d never had one eat ribbon. Yarn, yes. Ribbon, no. This was unfamiliar, dangerous territory.
I thought — hoped — it would be a single occurrence. But it wasn’t. Tibbs kept munching. And he didn’t need to see a decorated gift to know it existed. It could be carefully stashed on the other side of the house in a space he normally didn’t visit. It seemed to call to him. “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty…” Even transparent tape became a meal.
The following Christmas, I tried again to decorate gifts with ribbons and bows. What was I thinking? Every package under the tree exhibited gnawed, punctured or shredded bows and nibbled corners. Tibbs hadn’t left one present untouched. Even when I moved the packages to an area where I could keep an eye on them, he appeared like Houdini to chomp and devour. It escalated to a war of wills. No matter how much I bawled him out or flailed my arms to shoo him away, he persisted. I started imagining him plotting the destruction just to irritate me.
After bending over one day to inspect each package, and finding all of them taste-tested and damp, I plopped on the ground next to the mangled presents and heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Ah, Tibbs,” I murmured. “Why do you have to undo all of the love and work I’ve put into these gifts?”
For me, this destruction was personal. I was an expert package wrapper and bow maker. As a teenager, I took pride in my elaborate creations. I painstakingly cut every paper sheet at a perfect ninety-degree angle and folded corners like a nurse folds, creases and tucks hospital bed sheets. Each piece of tape was carefully measured and placed. I spent hours crafting handmade bows. My mom even had me wrap my own presents. She first sealed each box and then had me clothe them in rich paper and shimmering tassels and bows. Now, I cringed on Christmas mornings when my husband and two young sons tore into their presents without first admiring them. All they seemed to care about was locating the prize encased in the wrapping, not the wrapping itself.
As I breathed another exasperated sigh, Tibbs unfurled himself from his napping hideaway under the tree, crept out from under the low-hanging branches, extended each limb in an elongated stretch, meowed a “hello” and plunked himself down in my lap. Then he looked up at me with those adoring green eyes and gave me that what-are-you-so-worried-about-when-life’s-so-good look. I used my thumb and finger to massage the sweet spots between his ears, and his eyes dropped into contented slits. A light rumble vibrated his body.
As I massaged, my mind drifted to my storage closet, where reels of outdated ribbon languished. I cringed at the thought of the money wasted on unused supplies, even if they had been purchased on sale. I had to admit that I’d turned my talent and craft into an obsession.
“You’re right, buddy,” I said. “I do pour a lot of love into those wrappings, but it really is more about the joy the gift inside brings. The thrill I get when I see the boys’ faces light up at the discovery.” I hoisted him from my lap, laid him carefully on the floor and stood. “It looks as though my work-of-art-present days are over, my boy.”
Off came the ribbons and bows, and I devised a way to seal the paper and successfully keep the tape away from Tibbs’ searching nose. We happily delivered plainly wrapped, bowless, ribbonless gifts to our family and friends.
For ten Christmases, Tibbs delighted us as he boxed his way through and battled imaginary rivals hiding within discarded Christmas wrappings. He treated us to belly laughs when he hid in gift boxes and bags and stealthily appropriated our sixty-five-pound dog’s Christmas gift: a humongous new bed. He stole our attention when he sat gazing — mesmerized — at the gold flame spikes dancing in the fireplace. And he brought joy as he alighted on a lap to examine and approve of someone’s newly opened present.
Then one miserable November day, our precious feline’s too-short life ended. I imagined our beloved Sergeant Tibbs, who entertained and showered us with unconditional love, to be chewing ribbons and bows to his feline heart’s content without reprimand or danger.
Four weeks later, I rummaged through the closet for the Christmas paper and bows. Shimmering wrapping, elaborate bow material and metallic ribbons caught my eye. “I can decorate to my heart’s content now,” I whispered to myself.
But I didn’t. I put just enough love and flourish into the package wrappings to make them pretty, and thanked God for my little friend I missed so much. And I reminded myself that it’s not the fancy wrapping covering the gifts, but the giving of them that fills my heart with joy.
~Andrea Arthur Owan
