Bells and Stockings and Shnookums

It's that time of year again.  That time of year when the big green tree goes up and Mom hangs all of those little sparkly things off of it.  It's called a Christmas Tree.  Christmas is Mom's favourite holiday.  In fact, the tree has been up for a month already.  Yup - a month.

"Fluffy, Mommy loooooooooves Christmas!  And it takes a long time to decorate the house, so I might as well get it done earlier and then I can enjoy it for longer!"

"But Mom, next door still had their pumpkins out and you already hung up the Christmas lights!"

"Well I can't help it if they are 'late' taking down their Halloween decorations..."

Mom and Dad brought us up to play in the living room - unfortunately that also included Mom putting the dreaded "Bell Collar" on me.  See in the picture?  That's me sulking with Binks under the end table.  You can just make out the red and white collar with the gold bells as I had my head shrunken into my body in a serious pose of disapproval.  Every time I moved, those stinking bells would ring!  Even Binks did her best trying to pull them off of me - finally Mom got her stupid picture and I got to take them off.  THUMP.

Here's me under the tree.  All of our stockings are under there - they no longer hang by the fireplace in our room because a few Christmases ago Mom hung them there and I managed to chew off all of the glittery letters that spell our names.  So now they're upstairs under the tree where she can watch to make sure I don't eat them again.  Shnookums got mad at me for peeking.  Shnookums is the Christmas Stocking Guard Puppy.  He is sitting in a little pink cup over on the left of the picture.  It's his job to bark at anyone who tries to peek.  He lives for his job.  He might be a little stuffed dog, but he has one heck of a bark.  He growls too.

I got to work chinning everything under the tree.  Then I was busy chinning all of the branches I could reach - sheesh, what a job!  But it's done, so I declare everything under the tree to be MINE.  I even chinned Shnookums.  He wasn't too pleased, but then again, I'd rather have him on my side than not on my side.  Perhaps I need to distract him with a treat and then check out my stocking!  It's worth a try!

Fluffy