Breaking Cat News by Georgia Dunn for December 05, 2022

Shatterproof!? This . . . this is a betrayal!

(For Lupin, anyway. Elvis doesn’t seem to mind.)

It’s okay, they can still be knocked to the floor and then batted around, hidden under the sofa, etc.

NOT FAIR!

And I’m astonished it needed prrdh to remind me of this yesterday. Late, but better than never.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5M4tw_82PM

O.T., but seasonally relevant – here’s a link to Georgia’s Christmas Freebies page from the original BCN website, featuring ornaments and Christmas Carol theme coloring pages you can print out:

http://www.breakingcatnews.com/freebies/

I love Lupin’s defeat in the last panel. He knows he was both personally targeted (with good reason), and that the woman may of bested him this time. I’m still confident he’s going to TRY to find some way to break them or at least knock them down (even if they get back up again) out of spite. Either way this is going to be amazing.

My golden retriever’s wagging tail was a disaster to the lower ornaments. We started putting unbreakable ornaments on the lower branches. I was more worried about her cutting herself than broken ornaments.

You boys can still knock them down, at least.

“Shatterproof?” Wishful thinking, Woman! (I speak from experience, sadly.) A determined kitty will find a way.

OT – Skywalker

Lupin, do not give up so easily. The folks who labeled these as “shatterproof” have never encountered a cat of your talent for mischief and mayhem!

I was lucky, none of my cats ever bothered the tree. Nap under it? Sure, but never tried to climb it or bat the ornaments.

Surely Lupin should would simply see this as a challenge? Unless they’re made of fabric or sponge or paper or metal, anything can break if you believe in yourself.♥

Challenge issued, and accepted.

I’ve learned that my cats can break anything.

My last 2 cats left the ornaments alone and concentrated on the lights. They were masters at biting the very tips off the mini bulbs, so they were almost impossible to find and fix.

Shatterproof! Challenge accepted!

Come on, Lupin, step up your game!

My voids left the ornaments alone, but would climb into the tree where they were nearly impossible to spot. Now that I’m widowed, I won’t be putting up the tree any more. Wonder what mischief they’ll find next?

But will that stop Lupin from stealing them?

Not that I’m accusing him of stealing, of course. Especially not on Christmas!

I was so relieved to see this strip in color. About half the strips I normally get in color were black and white.

Awww. I think those ornaments are tiny (probably plastic) owls!

Challenge accepted!

Cats can break anything if they set their minds to it.

The first Christmas after I was double digits in cats thanks to a bunch of orphaned kittens, the Christmas tree was all felt,wooden and plastic ornaments. And, no lights. It was lovely, and easy to set back up once toppled.

Neither Murphy my Dobe, nor Loaner Cat have ever bothered with the ornaments, but I use iridescent curling ribbon instead of tinsel on the tree and Loaner Cat will occasionally pull a piece of that off and play with it. I’ll find it hidden here and there throughout the year when I’m vacuuming. Thing 1 texted me yesterday to tell me she got her tree up and her charcoal lab, Frankie was sitting in front of it, awestruck, as if all of the balls on the tree were for HER! They’re gonna be in trouble this year, I think…

Shatterproof or Lupin proof?

Thwarted…but, for how long?

I fear that $35 worth of ornaments is not going to go very far on even a small tree. Do we suppose she is optimistically planning on putting them only on the lower branches? The Woman has shown over and over again that her optimism is boundless.

One year I put one of those portable dog fences around the tree. Which led to one of my all time favorite pictures of Finlay, of him standing on his hind feet, one paw on the fence, the other paw reaching through to bat at the ornaments.

We put up the tree and trimmings on Saturday. My youngest void got into the tree last night, got startled from the noise and jumped out from half way up as I watched the tree sway from across the room. The angel a top the tree now looks drunk and is missing her harp, the rest of the ornaments are safe for now.

What are those ornaments supposed to be? Chipmunks Hedgehogs?

Albert always left our wee tree alone. I know Bartholomew won’t. Of course, this year my sister sent me some family heirloom ornaments, including the three surviving Shiny-Brite balls from my mother’s childhood. I think they stay in the storage box this year…

Which appear to be happy, chubby hamster ornaments.

Don’t despair, Lupin, see it as a challenge!

No, Lupin. The People simply set you a high challenge. Instead of breaking a few bulbs, this year you should aspire to knock over the entire tree. Remember your basic Physics lessons and you just might do it. Good luck!

Temper temper Lupin. You can come up with another plan.

Zedd, Featuring Foxes: Clarity

Hi dive from a Vegas tree

Where the ornaments all fall

In shards all across the floor

As the cats all have a ball

Now as the ornaments all crash

There’s no sound of broken glass

Plastic rolls over all the floor

But not one of them did smash!

…….

Lupin’s the cat we fear

When the Christmas tree is trimmed

Now there are two more cats,

The outlook for the tree is grim!

…….

If our cats all cause calamity

Just what is the remedy?

If I keep trimming the tree

Is that really just insanity?

…….

Elvis and Puck both look on

With new ornaments in place

Lupin just sees another challenge

Like a 2 am cat race!

Iggy and Ora are there

Causing chaos if they can

Trimming a tree is futile

But the Woman thinks she can!

…….

Lupin’s the cat we fear

When the Christmas tree is trimmed

Now there are two more cats,

The outlook for the tree is grim!

…….

If our cats all cause calamity

Just what is the remedy?

If I keep trimming the tree

Is that really just insanity?

There was a strip where the cats agreed that their people enjoyed decorating the tree so much the least they could do was knock all the ornaments off so the people would have the pleasure of decorating each day!

My parents had a cat early in their marriage, before children. They bought soft ornaments, styrofoam balls wrapped with silky thread. These ornaments lasted all through my childhood and beyond. I was quite a few years old before I found out that other people had delicate glass ornaments! Who knew?

I think we just did a gold-level cat spoiling gesture. The 2 windows in the kitchen/dining room needed replacing, so the large fixed pane got replaced with a pricier crank-out casement window and the tiny slider on the bottom of the other side was replaced with a crank-out awning window.

So now they have two options for staring outside and sniffing the air. Before there was just the one square foot on one side of the slider for both to squeeze shoulder to shoulder in. It’s a bonus for us as well because we don’t have to constantly be opening the door to the deck and letting bugs in.

So, not on the level of a co-worker from years back who bought a house so his cat would have a garden, but up there.

“WIll Not Break” is just cat-talk for “must try harder”.

I have confidence that Lupin can break something. He is the master of destruction.

Deck the tree with cat-proof balls, see?

Fa la la la la, la la la la

Watch while Lupin makes them fall, whee!

Fa la la la la, la la la la

And he does so without contrition

Fa la la la la, la la la la

Mocks the ancient Yuletide tradition

Fa la la la la, la la la la

Fa la la la la, la la la la la la

Fa la la la la, fa la la la

Ignore the people’s loud “NO!” chorus

Fa la la la la, la la la la

Strike the balls that bounce before us

Fa la la la la, la la la, fa la la la la, la la la

Follow in his merry pleasures

Fa la la la la, la la la la, fa la la la la, la la la la

While he wrecks the Yuletide treasures

Fa la la la la, la la la la

- John Ceiriog Hughes – Deck the Halls

Ah yes, plexiglass ornaments on a plastic and metal tree. “This one really brings Christmas close to a person,”

Found it! Here is the strip, 12/03/15 where Puck says The People enjoy decorating the tree so much https://www.breakingcatnews.com/comic/puckys-purrfect-christmas-tips-part-one/

This sounds like a challenge, cats.

Between this and the hippopotamus song yesterday, it feels like the people are challenging Lupin. I feel this will not end well.

Surprised it took the People that long to decide to do that. When my family first got a cat (many years ago now), we learned quick not to put the fragile ornaments on the tree, and by the following Christmas, only the non-breaking ornaments went onto the tree. It’s stayed that way ever since.

Ask any physicist: There are few things in this universe that won’t break if you just hit them hard enough.

Vlad liked to eat the tree. Last year, I just set it up, not knowing Oopsie’s reaction. He didn’t bother it. This year I’ll decorate it and see if he’ll like looking up at the lights like Natasha did.

I’m pretty sure that guarantee only applies while they are still in the packaging. :)

Seriously, my cats were never interested in ornaments; they just wanted to CLIMB the tree. I always had a very sturdy tree base for that reason.

“Shatterproof” sounds like a challenge. Bring on the Fluffapurrus Rex!

Been there, did that . Cats love to de-decorate the tree every day

Nothing is shatterproof with Lupin around.

First year back in the States I finally got to get all my expensive German glass ornaments out that I had been collecting since I was 8 years old and decorate the tree with them. It was also the year we lured a little feral tabby into our house. She turned into the biggest velcro and lap cat. We took appropriate precautions, ran a hook into a ceiling joist and TWO into wall studs and tied the tree firmly. Feeling quite proud of our handywork, we decided to go out for dinner and pick up a couple things from the store. Forward wind a couple hours and we came home to the tree down and literally every single one of the ornaments that could break, shattered beyond repair. First thing we did was find her and make sure she wasn’t hurt. Second we cleaned up, repacked all the things that weren’t broken and the tree and haven’t decorated for Christmas since. As much as I love decorating for Christmas, I’d much rather have cats and not have to worry about something breaking or them getting into something that could hurt them.

OT: Still no news…

I have a dozen or so of small blown glass ornaments. They sit in a bowl with other decorations and the cats ignore it. The only….oh bother, I’ve lost my train of thought again!

Fear not, Elvis, even though you cannot break them you can still bat them around and make a heck of a lot of noise. All night. All. Freaking. Night.

They might not break but then you get to look under EVERY piece of furniture to find where they went.

After 45 years of kids, dogs, cats, and me, I don’t have a single glass ornament left of my Mom’s. All plastic. And I always put one on the tree for the cat to play with.

Lupin, there is an ancient Scottish saying for this occasion:

FOOORRRRRE!!!

The tree is at Partner’s house, so no cats, but my favorite ornaments are five shiny painted plastic bells with an open lacy pattern, probably from the 40s, that were on our tree at home all my life. They were originally red, green, blue, gold, and silver, but the paint is pretty faded now so the colors are pale. Some folks might think they’re tacky, but I still love those bells and the memories they hold of those childhood Christmases when there wasn’t a care in the world except whether you were on the “naughty” list!

Is anybody else having problems getting the reply links to open? Some of them will and some of them won’t! It’s frustrating.

Funny, I just decorated my Christmas tree yesterday.

O.T. – Floyd update.

Shatterproof, not breakproof. Between Lupin, Iggy, and Ora, I think they’re up to the challenge.

When Dozer discovered the Christmas tree and introduced all future kittens to the Joys of Climbing, our breakable ornaments went into storage. We had some fun years decorating the tree with either non-breakable or don’t-care-if-they-break ornaments. One year we went with Pokemon kids meal toys.

THIS year, Brother and Sister-in-Law aren’t even putting up a full sized tree, because Nephew is determined to break whatever he can. They do have shatterproof/break resistant ornaments, but those only work when the almost three year old isn’t putting in the deliberate effort to break the ornaments into smaller pieces. Nephew is also a big reason that Niece still doesn’t have the cat she really, really wants. Toddlers are fun!

I could see “Thwarted!” replaced with “Challenge accepted!” in the last panel.

I saw a cute picture the other day of a cat Christmas tree. It was a tree layered in cat beds of all sizes. Why fight destiny?

WILL NOT BREAK…. as easily as glass ornaments. They will still break, I know because I’ve broken one or two. Takes much more of a beating though to break one so their perfect to have around cats. Especially Lupin.

As I have two curious fur babies, I keep the glass ornaments on top and the plastic ones down below.

Lupin is resourceful. This isn’t over yet.

Nimitz (Bastet rest) would nibble a few needles on the fake tree, then barf up some hair. Honor ignored the tree. As a kitten, Achilles attacked the lower ornaments (unbreakable). Cat knows what Monroe will do.

Don’t forget Paris Zarcilla’s cat calendar as well! (You can never, EVER have too many cat calendars.)

https://accidentalcatdad.bigcartel.com/product/pre-order-2023-cat-dad-calendar-5th-anniversary-edition

And this year, they bought a synthetic tree made out of recycled Kevlar.

Lupin, Lupin Lupin! Where has your spirit gone? Take this as a challenge!!!❤️

Are the ornaments owls?

My ornaments, bought so I could put them on the tree without breaking them, are over 50 years old and I’m still using most of them.

We had Xmas trees until I was six, then we got cats. Mom took one hard look at the Siamese eyeballing the ornaments and patted him gently then said “Tim you are going to save us so much money in NOT buying trees and decorations.” We never had another tree after that.

O.T. from Georgia: “Today’s strip is ripped right from the headlines of real life! Almost seven years ago to the very date (as seen in the second screenshot!) I put our more fragile ornaments into storage for a few years and bought $20 worth of shatterproof ones. (In the comic I scaled it up to $35, as prices have changed over the last few years.) It was a great decision and saved me a lot of stress when the kids were tiny. 2-3 years later, they came back out of storage for the higher boughs. The kids were older, Lupin was more interested in sleeping in the tree than bringing it down. The time passes either way, and those couple of years of shatterproof ornaments bought our more delicate ones time. I thought it would be fun to share it in the comic.The joke was on me—many of the shatterproof ornaments from that day became my favorites. Now they remind me of that time when the kids were itty bitty and Lupin was still with us. They’ve become more precious than the expensive glass ones they were originally bought to protect. Fun note: The third photo is from the actual apartment we lived in, in the Big Pink House! We turned the hallway/common space of that apartment into a living room.”

We do the same. Many ornaments – all wood, plastic, resin, solid ceramic, or something else largely unbreakable! Our elderly kitties really don’t climb the tree anymore, but you never know…..

The rule at my grandmother’s house (where I lived for half my childhood) was unbreakable only from the bottom halfway up, and delicates could go on the top half if well wired on. When the tree was live, there was always a cat in the tree, but when we switched to artificial, they lost interest for the most part. Twosie like to lay under the tree, frequently on top of presents. Breakable presents had to be placed in sturdy boxes before wrapping.

It’s so heartwarming to see Lupin so upset

I LOVE the furious Lupin here. Zenigata, or was it ZeniCATa, got you this time.