I'm thinking that dogs and Christmas don't fit well together. Which seems wrong on first blush since Theo was essentially a Christmas present for Kanha last year, arriving on January 7th, the adorable ball of multi-colored fluff he was. But Christmas went a lot better when he lived with us via photo, not in the fur and blood.
You see, Theo is a chewer, always has been, and God forbid, always will be? At least during his puppy and adolescent years that he appears to be mired in. He started on the Christmas tree, an 8 foot tall decoration that took a heroic effort by Kanha and I just to get into its stand -- me trying to maneuver the too-fat trunk, her trying to hold the tree stand still, both of us completely out of sync. When the tree finally landed with a thud in the hole, with a millimeter to spare on each side, I plopped down on a chair and decided decorating could wait for a day or two.
A disappointing decision for Theo, it turned out, because he had to wait those couple of days before he got to munch on his first ornament. He started on the easy ones -- the green paper 3D Christmas tree Kanha had taped together as a seven year old, the shiny red ball that crunched into pieces on the bare wood floor after one Theo-sized bite. I remained in denial after those disasters but when I heard the brand new oversized designer ornament I had gotten at this year's Christmas tea bounce to the floor, I realized that Theo had misunderstood when Kanha and I told him we were going to get him a toy for Christmas -- he obviously thought his present was the tree itself.
Soon after, our tree became pantless, a term coined by a friend with a bit more experience in puppy-filled Christmases: all the ornaments within a foot of the floor got a ride up a few branches. But that didn't deter our darling dog. Not only did he see the tree and its accoutrements his gift, he figured every gift, brightly wrapped, tightly tied, lying so comfortably in place on the tree's blanket, was for him too. So he started picking them up in his teeth (he can get a lot in that oh-so-cute, puppy-sized mouth), carrying them around the house, leaving them in various spots. When I came down from the second floor a couple of days ago and one of Kanha's gifts appeared entirely destroyed -- wrapping paper in strips, the box akimbo, the padding torn apart -- I surrendered and the tree had to too. Fortunately the gift in that box -- a beautiful pair of star earrings from my sister Lynn -- had survived the attack but our tree had to give up its presents. I rewrapped the earrings and added them to the oversize basket stacked full of all the presents formerly resting under the tree. The basket now sits on a table next to the tree with no chairs nearby lest Theo attempt to climb up to find his prey once again.
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| Our pantless Christmas tree |
Life's a little duller for Theo right now -- he no longer seems so much in the Christmas spirit with so much less to chew. But on Christmas, once we've started to open our presents, I'm sure he'll be happy again -- wrapping paper, ribbons, cards, tape, a true feast to behold. You may hear him howling, Joy to the World, as he happily munches away.
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