But when decking the halls, if your master says, "Sit"... you'd better obey, or disaster may hit.
Ah, Christmas. For those who celebrate, be they practicing Christians or simply observing it for the fun of the season, it’s a time of joy, merriment, and good will to men. However, what about good will to our pets? Or for that matter, good will from our pets? In fiction (and real life), companion animals and Christmas don’t always mix.
Christmas has sparkly decorations, twinkling lights (sometimes enough bulbs to illuminate an entire city just on one house), and foods that produce different and interesting smells unique to the festive season. All of this can be very overwhelming to the average house pet who thrives on routine, and that can be seriously overwhelmed by bright lights, dangling ribbons, and strange scents. All of these things can either cause stress or temptation for a bit of destructive play as Tiddles or Fido decide to investigate decorations, wrapping, and other Christmas bits and bobs with their claws or teeth.
Cats in particular are drawn to climb and/or abuse Christmas trees like moths to a flame for similar reasons that lead to the Cat Up a Tree trope. A lot of cats like high vantage points, and in the wild this makes trees an attractive place to both hide from predators and hunt smaller prey, so it’s not surprising that they consider climbing an indoor tree that their human has inexplicably placed in the living room, especially ones which are covered in dangling items which look a lot like their cat toys. Wrapping paper and boxes are also a draw to cats and dogs alike who enjoy shredding the crunchy substance, and cats love boxes even more than toddlers do, so trying to wrap Christmas presents with a cat or dog around can become a challenge.
All this can amount to a very stressed-out holiday household and confused, scolded pets that simply don’t understand what they did wrong. Expect An Aesop about the True Meaning of Christmas to be delivered to the pet guardian who overreacted to a mess and upset their furry friend. The whole scenario may also be played for laughs. Note that despite the cat themed pun name of this trope, this can apply to festive havoc caused by any pet.
Compare Christmas Light Chaos (where putting up the fairy lights proves to be a nightmare, perhaps due to intervention by an animal) and the Thanksgiving Turkey variations where the titular bird is trying to avoid being eaten. In some darker works this may lead to Black Comedy Pet Death. See also Pets as a Present for another trope linking pets with gift-giving celebrations. Sub-Trope of Crappy Holidays.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Advertising
- In 2015, British Supermarket Sainsbury’s adapted the children’s book Mog’s Christmas Calamity into an advert
. Like in the book, Mog, the pet cat of the Thomas family, gets her tail tangled in some fairy lights during a nightmare. Mog winds up setting off Disaster Dominoes that causes a house fire, but the day is saved by some local firemen, and the local neighbours muster around the Thomas family to clean up the disaster and share their own Christmas food with the family.
- This holiday-themed commercial for Temptations Cat Treats (a.k.a. Dreamies in the UK and Europe) features an "experiment" in which a clowder of cats is released into a room with an elaborate Christmas display. Unsurprisingly, the felines promptly destroy the trees, ornaments, toys, gift boxes, and dinner table until they're distracted by the sound of a Temptations bag shaking, and then scurry out a window to where the treats are.
Comic Strips
- Off the Mark has several comic strips touching on animals causing chaos around Christmas decorations and other holiday traditions:
- "Ornaments' Nightmare Christmas" depicts a movie theatre full of baubles watching a film using the logo The Nightmare Before Christmas in fear but it's actually a movie about a cat attacking Christmas ornaments.
- "Mistaken Identity Christmas" has two children coming downstairs to find the plate of milk and cookies they left for Santa has been devastated and commenting that "Wow Santa must've been starving!" but their chubby dog can be seen in the background implying the pooch is the actual culprit.
- In "Ornaments’ Scariest Spot on Christmas Tree" the tree topper star declares it has the scariest spot on the Christmas tree due to being up high, a bauble on the bottom branch declares it will "Agree to disagree" as it see the family cat approaching, paw extended.
- Mad Cat Can’t Reach High Christmas Tree Ornaments depicts an appropriately frustrated cat staring at the tree his own has set up where the ornaments only start half way up as a safety measure.
- The Christmas Day 2018 strip is titled destructive dog wants more wrapping paper at shows an incredulous Santa Claus staring at a cheerful pooch who is happily sitting amongst a room full of shredded wrapping paper and that is excitedly waiting for more.
- One strip shows a wrestling ring with a referee between to opponents asking "Who will be the last one standing?" said opponents being a fully decorated Christmas Tree and a house cat.
- In another strip one cat's owner asks it why it has felled the Christmas tree again, and it thinks to itself "Fir coat?"
- Another strip shows a cat having decapitated an Elf on the Shelf and telling the little girl they live with that "I took care of the snitch".
- Another strip has a woman happily declare that she bought a "top of the line fake tree" than even comes with a fake robotic cat to knock the tree over.
- "Ornaments' Nightmare Christmas
Films — Animation
- Played for Drama in the All Dogs Go to Heaven Direct-to-Video sequel and Christmas Special - An All Dogs Christmas Carol. After a young Carface accidentally knocked over his family's Christmas tree, he was kicked out onto the streets, serving as the Freudian Excuse for his unpleasant behavior. Belladonna, the returning villainess from All Dogs Go to Heaven: The Series also plans to hypnotise all dogs in the city to steal their master's Christmas Presents in the hope this will get them all kicked out of their homes like Carface was.
- In Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas the Inciting Incident of the "Mickey's Dog-Gone Christmas" segement is Pluto tripping whilst being over eager to place the Christmas Star atop the tree and setting off a chain of disasters that culminates in all of Mickey's Over-the-Top Christmas Decorations getting completely trashed just a few hours before they're due to host a Christmas Party.
Films — Live-Action
- In National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, this leads to the untimely death of Aunt Bethany's Persian cat. A Running Gag in the movie is Clark Griswold's battle with his faulty Christmas lights, at one point his Aunt Bethany's cat begins chewing on them and pulls them out of their socket. When Griswold plugs them back in the cat who was still chewing on the cable is electrocuted so severely all that's left is some scorch marks and fur.
Literature
- Adrian Mole: Played for laughs. Adrian picks up his baby sister Rosie to show her the finished Christmas tree; she merely yawns. The dog, on the other hand, has one of its mad fits on seeing the tree, and has to be restrained with a rolled up newspaper.
- Buster 1993: One of the reasons a family abandons the protagonist dog Buster is because he interferes when Christmas decorations are put up.
- In A Gift From Bob by James Bowen, the author describes coming home to find that the titular Bob (a stray cat which Bowen adopted while recovering from drug addiction) had been "helping" his friend Belle to make Christmas decorations, resulting in lengths of ribbon being strewn all over the flat as well as a trail of pawprints caused by Bob stepping in an inkpad. The passage also describes Bob as being "particular" about the placement of items on the Christmas tree, swatting off any he disliked.
- Mog has two different Christmas books that depict the titular feline reacting to Christmas:
- In Mog's Christmas, the titular cat is terrified by the changes around the house at Christmas, especially when she mistakes the family coming home with the Christmas Tree as a walking talking tree. However, she comes around on the holiday after getting leftover Christmas turkey and other treats.
- In Mog’s Christmas Calamity, after tangling her tail in some fairy lights during a nightmare, Mog winds up setting off Disaster Dominoes that causes a house fire. The day is saved by some local firemen, and the local neighbours muster around the Thomas family to clean up the disaster and share their own Christmas food with the family.
- Tosca's Christmas is the story of a house cat who is overwhelmed by all the changes around the house at Christmastide and who keeps being ousted from rooms for disrupting things like baking and wrapping. This culminates with her deciding to try and make a wish on the Christmas angel at the top of the tree to receive a present, but she knocks the tree down in the process. Her family kick her out into the snowy night only for Santa Claus himself to take pity on her and bring her inside and give her some of the affection she was desperately seeking and her own Christmas stocking with a wind-up mouse inside.
Video Games
- Catlateral Damage has a bonus level called "Pawliday Den" which allows the player character cat to wreak havoc on a big Christmas tree, presents, and lots of Christmas decorations.
Web Animation
- Punkey Doodles has a short where in an orange tabby tuxedo cat stares up at a Christmas tree as "Duel of the Fates" (the battle theme that first appeared in ''The Phantom Menace') plays, as the music reaches its crescendo the cat launches itself into the tree attacking baubles left and right. The short ends with the felled Christmas tree and the cat standing in front of it with a crazed look on its face.
- Simon's Cat has several shorts focused on the Christmas holidays:
- In "Santa Claws Is Coming to Town", Simon’s Cat completely destroys the Christmas tree by climbing up into it and bringing down all its spines whilst investigating as Simon is off collecting the tree topper.
- In "Wrapping Around the Christmas Tree", Simon’s Cat gets some tape that's been left out during wrapping presents stuck to himself and cannot get it off, as it just keeps transferring to different parts of his fur, much to his annoyance.
- In "It'll Be Gnomely This Christmas", Simon’s Cat and Simon's Kitten attack some of Simon's decorations out of what appears to be mere curiosity. Then it turns out Simon's Cat wanted the Angel tree topper so his Garden Gnome "friend" could have a Christmas date.
- In "Oh Deer", Simon’s Cat goes on the rampage against a reindeer toy, knocking over several other presents and destroying a Christmas Tree (again) in the process.
- In "Last Crispmas", Simon’s Cat licks all of Simon's Christmas snacks whilst Simon isn't looking and manages to get a pickle stuck inside a lampshade.
- In "It's Beginning to Look Like Catnip", Simon’s Cat knocks over a smaller Christmas tree and ends up tangled in tinsel garland whilst on a catnip high from his Christmas gift (which he’d pulled apart to get a more direct sample of ‘nip).
- By "Secret Santa" the cats appear to have learned about Christmas gift giving traditions, but local former feral cat Teddy still makes a mess of Simon's living room whilst delivering presents. He knocks decorations over and gets tangled in some sleigh bells, Cat and Kitten both miss seeing Teddy in person but the disarray makes Kitten and an initially skeptical Cat think Santa Claus has visited.
Web Comics
- The Good Advice Cupcake has a short where Cuppy's cat Sprinkles be a nuisance for Christmas (digging into the tree and eating the Turkey), Hanukkah (eating a dreidel) and Kwanzaa (trying to lick a lit kinara flame).
- Litterbox Comics is a World of Funny Animals webcomic which focuses on a family of cats. The strip "O Christmas Tree" depicts Fran checking off decorating the tree for Christmas from her to do list whilst a racket goes on in the background behind her. The next panel reveals that her husband and two sons have succumbed to their feline instincts to be play with the baubles and have nearly torn the tree down already. And the strip's bonus panel reveals that Fran can't overcome her own feline instincts either.
Web Original
Web Video
- The ShoKo Show is a YouTube channel (with other various social media profiles) about two former shelter cats Shorty and Kodi that produces cat based music videos to promote awareness of animal rescues. One of their music videos is a parody of "Oh Christmas Tree" (a.k.a. "Oh Tannenbaum" ) but with the lyrics tweaked to be about being a cat who can't resist interfering with the festive tree called "O Christmas Tree (Your Ornaments Are History)".
I look up upon with such delight / I think I'll take a tiny bite / O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree / your ornaments are history
Western Animation
- Classic Disney Shorts: In "Pluto's Christmas Tree", Mickey chops down a tree and brings it home for Christmas, not knowing that it was the home of Chip 'n Dale. The two chipmunks see the decorations and start playing around with them. Pluto sees them and tries to warn his master, but Mickey never sees them and dismisses it as Pluto being a dumb dog. Finally, Pluto has enough of the two interlopers and jumps into the tree, completely destroying it. Mickey is in the middle of scolding him when he finally notices the chipmunks, leading to a Face Palm from Pluto.
- In 2023 a 23 minute adaption of Mog's Christmas was made for Channel 4 like in the book Mog the cat is terrified by the changes around the house at Christmas, especially when she mistakes the family coming home with the Christmas Tree as a walking talking tree and she decides to stay on the roof to avoid all the chaos. However, she comes around on the holiday after getting leftover Christmas turkey and other treats. The film is longer than the short picture book so we also get to see certain things for Mog's point of view, including the tree actually walking, talking, and marching with the children of the house during a sequence inside Mog's imagination.