Yet another eventful month chez Chester.  We decorated the house with lights and trinkets.  The twerp and I were allowed to help with the decorations. Well, not so much “allowed” as we would’ve liked, however, we did help.  Okay, not so much “help” either.  Let’s just call it “participate”.  From what I remember of last year’s tree, this year’s is smaller and the folks placed it atop a table. They say they did this to be different from other years, but I know that it’s because they’re trying to keep it out of Rodney’s reach—yeah right!  Don’t they know that nothing in our home is out of the twerp’s reach?  You’d think they would’ve figured that out by now.

In the few weeks that we’ve had the Christmas stuff out, I’ve heard “leave it” three million two hundred and eleven thousand times – every single time it was directed at Rodney.  He seemingly complies to each request, then proceeds to pick up the next bauble in his line of sight and acts stunned when asked to leave that as well.  I’m sure he knows that they mean that he needs to leave everything, but the twerp is a persistent chap.  As you can imagine, he was curious of the boxes marked “Christmas Stuff” when he first saw them, he probably didn’t remember them from last year.  No sooner were these Christmas boxes open, when he tried to pick something up. Where to begin? So much stuff, it was almost as if he didn’t know what to reach for next. And get this, to add to the excitement, the folks were eating popcorn while decorating.  I’ve heard that you can actually use popcorn to make decorations. I believe you sew it together and make a garland of sorts. I’m not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, popcorn is for eating and should not be played with nor turned into a knickknack and wasted on a tree. On the other hand, is it really wasting? After all, we could eat it once the festivities were over making cleanup easier for everyone.

Anyway, it was all fun and games until the folks decided that it would be amusing to decorate me. Yes, me!  They actually put this jingle-belled collar on me!  Every time I moved it made noise. Obviously, I wasn’t having any of that, no possibility of going undetected with that on.  A large part of my stealthiness comes from my ability to move silently across the floor.  So, I gave the folks this pathetic look and voila!  Off with the collar!  I must say that I’ve gotten that look down to a science.  I use it for all my needs; go out, food, water, play…all of it.  Rodney has yet to master it.  But I digress, back to the tchotchkes, everything looks so pretty.  I especially love the lights on the tree.  The tree in the house.  Or as we boys call it, a bathroom in the living room.  Now that I think about it, the lights and ornaments they put on it present somewhat of an inconvenience.  Perhaps I’ll tell Rodney that we should just admire this one and continue to “conduct our business” on the trees outside. 

Photos Courtesy of The Author