Before I explain, I must say that I am a rural country girl. I grew up in the midwest in a small town of around 100. Most of my friends were farmers, and for a brief period in the late 80s, I wanted to be a farmer. I am very proud to say that not only was FarmAid started in my home state, but I have also went to FarmAid. I am still afraid of parking garages and elevators, as I was never around these new-fangled, big-city technologies growing up. Having said all of this, I think I have earned the right to use the word redneck as a term of endearment.
So we had just moved to Mattoon circa 1998, and like usual, we bought a real Christmas tree. At the time, we only had our two furry children, our cats Salty and Pepper. I loved watching our cats play, and Christmas was no exception. They would chase each other up into the tree, and the whole thing would shake. I remember fondly watching Salty chew on the branches of our beautiful tree and smile. How cute, I thought to myself.
Then, she started getting sick. I'll spare you the details, but it had an odd green color. Let's just say it wasn't a pretty Christmas green. Ironically, it took me a while to figure out that eating pine needles was probably not good for her. When I took her to the vet, I was shocked to learn that too many pine needles could actually cause a blockage and be fatal! We were really lucky that she didn't get very sick, but we now had a Christmas decorating emergency.
I have long been a tight-wad, so buying an artificial tree after I had already bought a real tree in the same holiday season was not an option. Until we could decide what to do, we moved the tree, decorations and all into our spare room. Finally, it was clear that the best option was to fashion a fence out of chicken wire, no less, to keep the cats out of the tree. We headed over to our local Rural King (a farm supply store, which is really cool BTW), to get our supplies. I have to tell you that it doesn't matter how many strings of Christmas lights you use, chicken wire is chicken wire. You can't really pretty it up.
Here is a photo of Salty and the tree, before her evergreen eating binge. Isn't she cute?
Oddly enough, I do not have any photos with the chicken wire. So, do you have any redneck Christmas stories?
