How to Have a Christmas Tree with Dogs

Its the most wonderful time of the year (unless you live in Maryland, where its the month you are most likely to be shot or beaten for a parking spot at the mall), and for most of my friends, the big talk is how to have a Christmas Tree and dogs in the same house.

While a lot of you that own dogs have obedient dogs normally only found in movies that pose in santa hats for the perfect family Christmas card straight out of the bowels of Normal Rockwell, about 99.93467% of my friends own Siberian Huskies who tend to think for themselves, and they think that peeing on gifts before ripping them to shreds, then knocking down the tree, eating shards of heirloom ornaments and then yakking up a big pile of tinsel at the Vet Emergency Room is a job well done.

For husky owners, trying to outsmart their dogs is akin to trying to outsmart those evil veliciraptors in Jurassic Park, so there have been some major innovations on the Christmas tree protection program.

So when Angela of Fluid Pudding asked the age old question of how to protect her beloved taped up fake but chock full of memories Christmas Tree now that she has 2 adorable and totally innocent non-husky dogs in the house, I told her it was a piece of cake.  If you don't follow Angela, well, you should.  Not only is her blog hilarious, but she videos herself cramming a gazillion marshmallows in her mouth for no real reason... and its totally awesome.

Then she explained that she wanted to maintain the total spirit of Christmas as well... that poses a bit of a challenge, as there are 3,000 ways to protect a Christmas tree from a husky, but it tends to take a bit of the holiday spirit out of a display that looks like a combination of a super max prison and the great wall of China.

I quizzed my dog owning friends for the perfect solution for the Pudding family tree this season and here are the suggestions sorted from incredibly outlandish and doomed to failure, to the winning idea that doesn't require a moat and boiling oil that actually maintains the whole Christmas look and feel.

1.  Paint Ball Gun:  While tagging your dog with a paint ball gun may provide some relief to the tree and presents, it tends to make a bit of a mess, and also your dog probably won't "get" that the tree spews painful balls of paint at them (because dogs are smart) they'll rightly guess that their human is shooting paint balls at them and will either wait for you to leave the house before gutting the tree and gifts, or (if you own a husky) run around wildly while you shoot at them, causing certain chaos, then roll on your clean white sheets to remove the paint from their fur.  We do not recommend this method.
2. Convert to Judaism: This is certainly an alternative, but having a lighted menorah is far more dangerous around dogs with wildly swinging tails than a simple Christmas Tree.  Alternative: Buddhism.
3. Hang the tree from the ceiling: This is certainly a viable solution, but may be confusing to young children who aren't use to seeing replicas of trees attached to the ceiling and could require years of therapy if not prepared for such a sight.  You also risk having a very clever dog who can figure out how to reach it even up there, and there's still the issue of where to put the gifts... unless a hanging bag of gifts (much like camping food stored away from bears) is acceptable.
4.   Explain the importance of the tree and gifts to the dogs: Ok, stop laughing.
5. The Army of Four Zim Detection Device: Hang a bell or other noise making ornaments near the bottom of the tree so that if the dogs get too close, you are alerted by the sound and can run in for corrective action.  Of course this will only work while you are at home, and are very fast.  We would like to point out that the Army of Four is suspected of being Labradors in husky outfits and are oddly well behaved.
6. Hot Wire: wrapping the tree in a low voltage electric fence wire will deter the dogs from approaching or touching the tree.  Dogs are smart and will only require one zap to learn not to touch the tree.  Unfortunately humans are not as smart and will invariably take several zaps before they get fed up and unplug the hot wire.  The dogs are smart and will see you unplug the hot wire and take advantage of the tree at that point.  We really don't recommend this if your pack of dogs is known as "Hooligans" (right Marilyn?)

The final and probably only viable solution is the camouflaged X-pen with slightly raised table solution!

Place your tree on a coffee table and decorate.  Using the tree stand skirt, drape over the table to hide it.  Purchase an X-pen.

Brick patterned paper.

Decorate the x-pen to look like a fireplace, or brick wall, or use wrapping paper with snowmen to hide the prison-like appearance of the X-Pen.

Set up the X-pen to surround the tree, coffee table, etc.  Your gifts, tree and ornaments will be safe and sound for the holidays.

Remember!  Holly is poisonous to dogs!  Don't let them eat tinsel.  Ensure that the light cords are in the X-pen and out of their reach so they can't chew them and electrocute themselves or set the house on fire, or both.  Do NOT let the dogs drink out of the tree holder!  The chemicals used to preserve the tree are toxic.  Never give your dog chocolate, raisins, or grapes.  Don't let them eat tinsel (its very important, which is why I wrote it twice), ornaments, or ribbons.  If your dog eats tinsel, ornaments, or ribbons, do NOT induce vomiting, consult a vet immediately!.

Gee, no pressure there for the holidays, right?

So, there you go... you can have your tree and enjoy the holidays even with devious, destructive dogs... until they figure out how to climb, jump, or open the X-pen.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and good luck!

Fond Childhood Memory: Christmas

Since we don't have kids and the dogs can't read calendars (they think every day they get a cookie is Christmas), its kinda hard to get into the Christmas spirit.  I truly do think that Christmas and Disney World are for kids, and that Disney World as an adult is inhumane and should be outlawed, or they include "adult land" where its nothing but alcohol and strippers.

Anyhoo, I just happened to find some black and white pics of one of my childhood Christmas times, so I thought I'd share the wonder that was "A Very Robinson Christmas"... and yes, for those of you that know my first name is Penny, I was Penny Robinson and NO I wasn't named after the stupid "Lost In Space" family (although I had an Uncle Don and my father was Jon, I did not have a little brother or a freakin robot so STFU I was named after a dog!).

See, you keep trying to ruin Christmas for me, so just be quiet and enjoy "A Very Robinson Christmas" and no, we weren't a Swiss Family either OMG will you just be quiet and enjoy the stupid pictures!

Here is our tree:

Yes, it looks like quite the motherlode of gifts under the tree, but be advised, we got socks and clothes and to make things look bountiful, my parents use to wrap everything separate... so it was "ooooh, a sock", then "oooh the other sock".

The tree was snagged from one of the local tree sellers and decorated with about 5,000 lbs of ornaments, popcorn strings, and tinsel.  We would invariable find popcorn and tinsel laden poo or cat puke around the house for weeks after, and there was always the lovely walking through the house and having your foot impaled with a brittle, splinter-like tree spike.

The "thing" in our house was that my mom would take my sister out "shopping".  Then she would take me out "shopping".  I can only vouch for my shopping, but it went something like this:
Mom - "Your sister would really like that doll"
Me - "euw, lets get her a GI Joe"
Mom - "no, I think we should get her THIS doll"
Me - "whatever"

Then, when we would unwrap our gifts, we would each get the same doll, and the same GI Joe... whatever one got, the other got.  The mindset behind that insanity was that we would never fight over gifts, because we both got the same thing.  We figured that out quickly, and just traded dolls for GI Joes and finger paints for guns, then we both had two of what we wanted.

The household tradition would be that on Christmas Eve Dad would trudge upstairs with Mom and read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" where we would both burst out laughing when the guy "threw up" the sash.  Then we were told that we had to fall asleep or santa wouldn't come.  Of course we were too keyed up to sleep and heard Santa downstairs rustling around and cursing in a voice that sounded like dad.

Around 3am we'd get up and creep downstairs and ask if it was too early, then run back upstairs when threatened with bodily harm and continue to ask each hour until finally they'd have enough and decide to get up.  Then we had to wait for the coffee to brew and they each had their first cup before we started the whole opening gift process.  We'd get each parent a gift, then get to open one, etc.

Here I am near the tree, and from the carnage it looks as though we are in mid-unwrapping.  The lovely little pajama number was sewn by my mom, who ran out of the patterned material before she made the sleeves.

Yes, that is a cow skull hanging from a beam in the ceiling, and yes, that is the sun god Rah on the wall.  Behind me is a rotary phone too.

Here is a bigger picture of the homemade pajama monstrosity.  Please note: I have the exact same hairstyle now.  Also note that the last time I was home, my mom still had the same Encyclopedia Brittanicas that we bought from some door to door salesperson dirt cheap because even by the time we bought them, they were incredibly outdated. I'm pretty sure there's an entry in them about the world being flat.

Here is my dysfunctional sister with her bounty.  Love the saddle shoes (and yes, I got the same exact freaking things).

Every year one of us would get the "big" gift.  Actually if it was for us kids, we'd each get the "big" gift, like bicycles or something.  But this year it was mom that got the big gift... a new sewing machine.  She cried over the sewing machine... seriously?  We cried over the sewing machine too, because that meant that she could sew unmatching, one sleeve too long fashions for us for school.  Don't get me wrong, I appreciated the fact that my mom tried to put us into the latest fashion, but as with all home-made clothes, its just... not right and all of the kids KNOW its not store bought, especially when your mother can't match fabric colors to save her soul (a trait she passed on to me).

Later she would take up crocheting and I had quite a collection of mutant stuffed crocheted animals.

There you have a "Very Special Robinson Christmas".

Merry Christmas to everyone out there!