There’s a reason I don’t put the ornaments on the tree right away.
I thought with another year of wisdom and experience the cats might be kinder to the tree. But yesterday we got home from work to find this carnage in the living room.
The investigation initially focused on two prime suspects, juvenile offenders with a past history of tree climbing, but the discovery of a clump of soft, black fur in the treetop has narrowed the focus. The accused did herself no favors when, as I righted the tree, she climbed back into it before I even had it upright again.
In her defense, the tree stand isn’t the best. It certainly wasn’t designed with the idea of a 10 lb. ornament hanging from the top.
Boolie 
alternate caption: “My work here is done.”
Oh, if only her work were done …
Emma, like Nick, understands that the Natural Order of Things requires constant vigilance and knocking things over, down, and/or off to convert that pesky potential energy back into the kinetic energy where it belongs.
She seems to understand this Natural Order all too well, given the shattered ornament at the base of the tree. Fortunately it was just one of the cheap colored balls I use as sacrificial lambs to protect the more treasured ornaments. She claims that she didn’t knock it off and that, according to Chaos Theory, a butterfly could have flapped its wings in Tokyo and caused a chain of events that made the ornament fall off.
She’s no longer allowed to watch the Discovery Channel.