The conversation about toddlers messing with the decorated Christmas tree had me thinking those of us who have had a tree probably have a good story - good, bad, ugly!! 
Cats hiding in the tree?
Dogs peeing under the tree?
Nests found in a tree?
Fallen trees, crooked trees, the tree that dried up and dropped it’s needles before the holiday even arrived?
Share yours.
I do think our new rescue dog had one or two pees under our tree last year…
One year when our 3 kids were deep in the weekend extracurriculars that we all would attend we woke up one Saturday morning realizing we didn’t know when we could squeeze in a family trip to the tree yard to get a tree. The previous owners of our home had planned a couple too many pines in the yard and we had been meaning to take one or two out of our front yard area.
H and I looked at each other and he went and retrieved his hand saw. An hour later we had a big, beautiful bushy pine in our living room that we had to push and squeeze through our large front dutch door. THAT tree smelled amazing all season long and my kids still say it was the best tree we ever had.
I’ve shared this before, but when my oldest was 6 months, I was holding him and letting him touch our real Christmas tree. He grabbed it and pulled it over on us. (Obviously we didn’t have it securely in the stand) When I pushed it off of us, there was a tree needle sticking out of his eye. I rushed him to the pediatrician who told us it was just superficial. Whew!
OMG that had to be so frightening!!!
My Golden Retriever, Shadow use to remove the round glass ornaments and bring them to me to play ball. Luckily, never broke any.
It’s not a funny story or similar, but my favorite Christmas tree is the first one we bought while here on our farm. Our oldest had just started kindergarten back then. We always buy the plantable/potted versions, so H and the kids planted it out back after we were done with it. Now it’s a very tall, stately tree that almost any city would be proud to cut down and cart away to use for their festivities, but it’s “mine,” and I can look out my kitchen window and reminisce as often as I want to.
I’ve told the kids that tree never gets cut down as long as I’m alive - and even after my death I might come back to haunt them if they cut it down. When/if this place ever gets sold I suppose the next owner can do so if they wish, but I hope I never see it happen. It’s my “memories tree.”
No tree, but this was the daily New Yorker cartoon:
The first year we had our dog we found him under the tree “opening” his gifts. He only destroyed the wrapping on his toys and treats and left the others alone. He must have smelled something different with his presents. Since then, we wait until xmas morning to put out his presents. It was actually petty cute ; )
Good dog, Shadow!
When our oldest child was 2, we put up a large and quite over-decorated tree in our house; and because of concerns I had with the stability of the tree in the crappy stand we had at the time, I put some thread around the tree near the top and tacked it to the wall behind the tree, in hopes of keeping it upright but without it being too obvious that the tree was supported. Well, it didn’t work; and one night shortly before Christmas the fully ornamented tree toppled over, in spectacular slow motion, when all of us were in the room. My 2-year old jumped up and down and started clapping and said, “YAY!!” (I guess she thought that this was how it was supposed to work with a Christmas tree.)
One year we found our big ole fat cat sitting on a limb of the tree.
This year we took our grand-dog, a (mostly) husky mixed dog to the tree farm.
You had to be there, but a little boy took a very deep audible breath and then said “it’s a husky!” like it was magic or something. It was the sweetest moment.
She got lots of other pets from kids, but that little boy was just overjoyed to see her.
OneChristmas season, we were all “under the weather.” I decided I was healthiest of us and decided to go get a Christmas tree but they were sold out of live ones. I considered myself lucky to get an artificial one at 50% off or something and lugged it home.
That was the beginning of our artificial trees. We never had a ”real” one again and our allergies over the holiday season improves markedly.
No great specific story, but our 25+ year old Xmas tree that I put up in our bedroom… The bottom two rows of branches are all completely bent from where cats have sat in them over the years. Usually they do it the first 1-2 years until they get too heavy.
However, the main reason I set up this tree is because of the cats. They love the tree skirt. My eldest in particular. He just lights up when he sees it coming out. I have that skirt velcrod, pinned and weighted with a brick and he’ll still have it messed up in 5 min flat. And all of the bottom ornaments get pulled down and the lights are hanging here and there after their daily wrestling matches. But they love it so much and it makes Us laugh
We had a leaning tower of Pisa tree a few years ago. We kept putting magazines under the edge of the tree stand until the water started coming out of it. Finally had to give up and spent a lot of time trying to right the tree, messing up the ornaments and lights along the way. At least two glass balls broke. The issue was that one screw wasn’t as tight as the others against the base of the tree. I will blame myself for that one, as I’m always the one who adjusts the screws while my husband holds the tree upright.
I remember as a kid my parents got a flocked tree. The white stuff got everywhere. It was probably horribly toxic. It would disintegrate even more as you tried to vac it up. It was fun though. Sure looked festive in So Cal in the winter.
I remember having a flocked tree in Northern CA too. It felt “better” than the green ones, because it had “snow.”
My parents retired to North Carolina hill country, where my uncle had a Christmas tree farm. He always delivered a gorgeous tree to them that would sit in the side yard until one of the “kids” would be there to help set it up. One year my brother (think 80s big hair) was setting it up when a bat flew out of it and got stuck in his hair.
When my husband was growing up - Santa delivered the decorated tree and all the presents over Christmas eve. He said is was so magical as a kid to wake up Christmas morning and see it all there.
His parents were happy to stop that tradition when the last of 6 kids were old enough to know better and laughed that they were really young and stupid when they started the tradition ! We joke that there are no pictures of the tree, as imagine it was decorated in a big hurry Also, a tradition they did not encourage any of their children to continue with their own families !
Growing up, my family had an artificial tree that we put up every year. The tree, like many others, had a base part that you seated each individual branch into, and then a solid piece for the top of the tree that you placed on top of the base. My dad spent hours one year looking for a middle part of the tree while my mom was at work (working second shift at the time), and when she came home had sadly confessed he had lost part of the tree and couldn’t find it anywhere. Then mom gently informed him that there had never been a middle part of the tree. It turned out us kids had gotten taller and dad was convinced a part was missing because it was too short in comparison to us kids. 
My late cat loved the Christmas tree skirt also! He would claim his spot on it as soon as we put it down. Even after we stopped putting up a Christmas tree (due to space constraints) we continued to lay out the tree skirt for him to enjoy at Christmas. He also liked to lie under the empty stockings where he was cozy.
A black cat we had when I was a teenager climbed the Christmas tree one year.
Our cats have never tried to climb our real Christmas trees, but we have one that loooooves to drink Christmas tree water. We’ll hear a little slurp slurp slurp and look under there and she’ll be drinking the “wild” water. She was feral for her first 5 months so maybe it reminds her of her wild kitten hood.
