I always unplug the tree when I am leaving the house. Agree with Uptown Gal on that. No sense taking a chance.

Yes, real or fake. Mine, (fake) (cat eats real), is connected to an outlet with an on/off light switch, that is cut off at bedtime or when we leave.

Always unplug Christmas lights when I leave the house, but I do leave a few other lights on and occasionally a radio.

I live in a 100 year old home, lovingly restored, and am very careful of fire. Pets or no pets, I do not leave the tree on unless I am awake and in the house.

No lights plugged in or left on here when I leave the house except for the hallway light that goes on automatically in the hallway for the pups. I'm afraid to have a fire in the fireplace even and don't burn candles ever. I have a very robust and healthy respect for fire.

We only plug it in when we're home and awake. Many years after my childhood friend moved away from my neighborhood, her (old) home burned down for just that reason.

We don't leave it plugged in, we even turn it off during the day when you can't really see it very much because of the day light. We unplug it if we leave and when we go to bed too.

We never leave lights on when we leave or go to bed, except for the outside lights.

Ditto on all the above answers. We never leave the lights on when we're not home. Actually, except for Christmas Day we don't turn on the lights until late in the afternoon. We also turn off the outside lights when we go to bed.

When mine is up I only plug in the lights when we’re there to enjoy them, then they’re unplugged. But the current pair of cats would destroy the tree if it and they were left unattended, so the tree goes into a room I can shut the cats out of if we’re not in it.

Known of too many fires that were started from trees when the lights were left on and plugged in. Beyond the shorting of the electrical cords or lights especially with a real tree the lights dry the surrounding area. Some types of material ignite at much lower temperatures than people think possible.

While you could rig a system or plug into an outlet that turns the lights off it is better to form the habit of unplugging. That was there is less chance of a fire. Some that have had fires limit the amount of time the lights are on or only have them on when they are in the room. We stopped keeping ours lit when a friend lost her house. In her case the way the lights were strung, too many lights in one area, prevented the heat from dissipating. Not certain if the packaging below the light cluster caught fire first or the branches around the cluster.

Lights off, no dishwasher or washer or dryer running, no crockpot, Nuttin Honey.

I have no pets or children in the house. My tree lights are plugged into a surge strip, which I turn off by using the switch on the strip. Do I need to actually UNPLUG the strip instead?

I unplug the dog..........when we leave, she's confined. This is for her safety because Lord only knows what she would get into. That being said, we don't leave tree lights on when we are not at home.

When I turn the switch off, there is NO power to the cord. It is the same as unplugged.

My lights are plugged into a strip which is plugged into a wireless remote control device.

Yes, I do leave it plugged in when I go out as to me, an unlit Christmas tree is just a huge invitation to a burglar - it just screams "THERE'S NO ONE AT HOME!" My live tree is put up pretty close to Christmas and the place I buy it keeps the trees in water until pick-up or delivery, plus I'm pretty good about keeping it well-watered. Pets are always locked in the kitchen when we're not home, plus the house has an alarm system with a smoke detector that calls the fire dept/police if we're not home to turn it off.

A risk? A little, but not huge.

Not only would I unplug the lights, I'd be worried about a pet getting tangled up in the Christmas lights cords especially cats as they are capable of climbing the tree where the cords run around and back and forth over the tree. As mentioned upthread, a room with a door would be a good idea for keeping pets away from the tree when they aren't being supervised by the humans.

We had a dog get tangled up in the phone cord (back in the day when phones still had cords) and when I walked in the door after work, I thought she was dead. She wasn't, but it sure was scary and I've never left pets alone around cords since.

THERE'S NO ONE AT HOME!

So when you leave the house and the tree is on it is a risk to critters but when it is off it is a risk to things?

As to the size of the risk in either case, there are many reasons why the police/fire dep't may not show up immediately.

Things not on when we are not home or awake: tree lights, dryer, candles, most lamps or lights.

I do take a chance when we are out of the house for several days and set some lamps on timers. I grew up in an "anxious home" and my mom worried about everything and then some. I'm in recovery.

With the new lights now a days, bulbs are cool to touch and do not over heat. At least mine don't. I leave them on 24/7. I leave a lamp on 24/7 also. I do not have pets all the time but do have our granddogs often. Luckily we have a doggie door if anything would go wrong.

I am confused do you mean turn the lights off or actually unplug it? Ours is on a switched outlet and goes off when I leave. I thought you meant a double caution of unplugging it for some reason.

We don't let our cat on the main floor unless we are awake or at home. As soon as we go to bed, or leave the house, he goes into the stair well. He's still a kitten (about 15 months old) and VERY curious and gets into EVERYTHING. He's knocked over plants, ripped leaves off of plants (finally stopped doing that) knocked ornaments off shelves and if he knocks my $2500 3D curve tv on the floor he'll be out the door, so to be safe: we don't leave him unattended.

When we only had a couple of cats, we put up a tree. And the cats had nothing to do with the lights being turned off when we left. We always did that anyway. But last year, with a gang of 7 cats, the tree didn't stay up very long. They kept removing ornaments and I kept putting them higher on the tree. It wasn't pretty. No more trees for us, which is fine with me. It's all about the cats anyway.

I'm always seeing all sorts of cat toys when I go to a pet store. I wonder why someone hasn't made a small Christmas tree with cat safe ornaments for them to play with.

Over 50 years ago, my parents had a cat. Every Christmas, we would find Mehitabel (yes, named for the famous cat in the book, Archie and Mehitabel) sitting on a sturdy branch, right up against the trunk of the tree, staring at us like the Cheshire cat. Now this was a tree with that old-fashioned tinsel put on it, lovingly one or two pieces at a time (it took forever!), and not one strand was out of place.

We never saw Mehitabel get up in the tree, nor did we ever witness her descent. She looked quite lovely with her eyes "glowing" from the tree lights! She was quite a character.

None of our cats ever got up IN the tree, but they did knock it over during the night one time (nasty old-style Christmas tree stand). We tied it to something from then on and never again heard that unmistakable sound in the middle of the night.