I gave you the second year first... so here's the first year they did this... it's much better than the first link

Here is a link that might be useful: decorating 101

Very cute pictures. Boy those cats love the tree!

What a hoot! Thanks for sharing that!

My friend's cat climbs all through the tree every year...at least one of the cats...the other weighs about 21 pounds and I don't think he could get to the first branch...LOL!

My 4 cats have finally decided this year the tree is to be vertical and not horizontal...So far so good, of course if Santa doesn't treat them good, we might find it horizontal....

I was dreading putting my tree up due to my 4 cats also. But fortunately they have all stayed out of it this year! They do love to sleep under it and near it, which is fine.

One of them however, my catdog, has chewed 3 different wooden ornaments. She is worse than a dog when it comes to chewing. She also chewed off a light and somehow the rest of the lights still work. :)
Sher

My cats have been OK with the tree this year. They do some damage to the bottom branches by pouncing and batting at them and tear off the low-hanging ornaments, but we always put our cheap, nearly indestructible stuff towards the bottom.

Here's a joke I found this year that I thought was so, so true!

How to Cat-Proof Your Christmas Tree

1. Buy a cardboard box big enough to hold the tree. Paint it red and yellow. Paste pictures of cats playing with toys on the box. Write phrases on the box like: "Giant very expensive cat toy." "Your cat will LOVE it!" "No cat can resist!" "Hours and hours of fun!" "Only $99,999, 999.99!"

2. Bring the tree home inside the box, and round up your cats. Say, "look what mommy got you! A giant, really really expensive cat toy! You will go NUTS! I can't wait to see you play with this!"

3. Force the cats to watch you put up the tree and decorate it. If they drift off towards the cardboard box, bring them back to the tree and point at it while saying things like "you had better play with this thing, mommy spent a month's salary on it."

4. When the tree is decorated, wave some branches in their face and shout, "come on and play! Lookee here, the branches move, see? Kitty is supposed to swat at the branches and have lots and lots of fun! Hey, come back here! You come back here right now and play with this tree. See how much fun it is? HEY. I'M TALKING TO YOU. Get out of that box right now, mister. The box is NOT a toy. THIS is the toy." If you do this with enough sincerity, your cats will avoid the tree like it was a foaming mad Rottweiler. Of course, you'll be stuck with a big ugly cardboard box in your living room all through the holidays, but it can always double as a buffet table.

Those pictures are adorable! But, I am perplexed. Do all cats behave that way? I grew up with a calico who lived to 18, (slept on my bed every night) and she never, ever climbed our tree. We had a live tree every year, fully decorated with glass ornaments. But I also had a formidable mother!

Sully too true.

Too funny..and true. I spent a nice sum on an elaborate, but fairly tasteful cat tree. When the UPS guy came, I said the same thing.."look at the wonderful place that four of you can go on at once and look out side at the birds." Turned my back and three of them were in the box. To this day I've only seen two cats on it and it's kinda cool..at least to me...

Neither of my two cats have even looked at our Christmas tree. I was really worried, as this was the first year that we had a real tree, and I had visions of them knocking it over or climbing up it, but they've completely ignored it, and the ornaments. They must be getting old :(