Quest for a Cat-Safe Christmas Tree

I've been lucky with my pets. Until now.

Than Chai (you remember him, Destructo, The Wonder Kitty?) was a little too fond of trying to climb the tree last year. We locked it into the guest room, but this year there's no room, as it now contains a bed.

So I was mourning the lack of a tree this year, in advance, while paging through a book on Christmas cookies and had a flash of genius. Or hope, or something like that.

What about a tree with ornaments no more breakable & valuable than a cookie? Mind, I haven't gotten to baking the cookies yet (though the dough is chilling even now in the Monitor Top), but over the past week I have done the following:

*gilded walnuts
*made snowflakes from silver doilies
*collected large pine cones, sprayed them w/white paint & added glitter
*studded tangerines with cloves and hung them with ribbon
*bought candy canes

I am going to take a chance with my angel. Only his head is breakable, and the boys haven't tried to climb the tree once. Fa Sing does reach up and ring the bells. I hung lots of bells on the tree to set up an alarm system. It works pretty well, except when the heat sets them off.

Today the Victorian tin icicles arrived from The Vermont Country Store, and they're on as well.

When I have the cookies in place, I'll take some pictures and post them. Probably before next Christmas, but don't place any bets. It's safer that way.