Christmas kitties

Here are the results of my appeal yesterday for holiday-themed cat photos. I’ll still accept photos today, but will be checking the Web only sporadically. We have about 20 entries, which is few compared to previous years; more evidence that this site is moribund.

From Divy:

I couldn’t find the photo of Jango under the Christmas tree, but here is one of him wearing a Santa Claus suit. The suit is obviously not made for a cat, but for a little dog. He did not like it

From Chadwick Jones:

This is Bert—the kiddo named him after Albert Einstein.

From Terry:

An easy spot the cat for the Christmas cats collection.

From Bruce:

Good morning Jerry – per your request, here is a somewhat Christmas-y photo of three of our cats –  DSH Daisy, along with Burmese Rommel and Mothra.  When we built this mantle, my wife envisioned all sorts of decorations on it.  Thirteen years and many cats later, this is what we’re reduced to.

From Robert:

This is Oliver in 2018. He died of kidney failure a year later.

A bit more about Oliver:

I maybe should have added a little more about Oliver. The attached is from the local no-kill shelter, telling the story of how Oliver got to them, and from there how he became mine. He was a really sweet kitty, except that he terrorized my other cat, Lucy. He was constantly finding places from which he could wait to ambush her when she walked by, which understandably ended up making her kind of paranoid. I was very sad when he died, but Lucy was delighted to be my one and only again.

Our sweet and shy Violet is watching the door, guarding the gifts and listening for the sound of the can opener.

Her staff,

Robin Branch, Boca Raton FL

From Naama Pat-El:

This is Maryam, a Christmas gift from my husband. She joins three other cats and three human kittens, none of whom was a Christmas gift.

From Don Macdougall:

Ten year old Molly has her own Christmas tree that she is allowed to terrorize.

From Claudia Baker:

Here is my contribution to your request for Christmas Cats. His name is Bodie, my gorgeous beige tabby. He lived with me for 18 years, and sadly, I lost him last year on Dec. 15th.x

He was the best boy – always sweet with all people.  Gentle and loving. However, he intensely disliked dogs!

He had taken over my kindling basket as his favourite place to nap.
I tried putting an elf hat on him for a Christmas picture, but he would have none of it, and preferred to snuggle and sleep on it in “his” basket instead.

From Maya Markova in Bulgaria:

I am sending a photo of our cat researching the Christmas tree. She is 2 years old, named Pippy. She is seeing a true Christmas tree for the first time, because she used to be an office cat before we adopted her last spring.

From Stephen Caldwell:

Here is a picture of my two cats, Pepper and Picasso, under our Christmas tree.

From Leo Glenn:

This is Arty. He showed up at our house in the fall of 2019, at death’s door. He was emaciated and had severe upper respiratory issues. I had serious doubts about his chances. We thought he was a kitten because he was so small, but the vet said he was between 5-7 years old. It took months to nurse him back to some semblance of health. Unfortunately, he still has many serious health issues, including severe asthma and FVR, but he’s a tough little guy. He recently had some booster shots, which sent him into another downward spiral. He had a bad 24 hours, but he’s doing better now. This is his fifth Christmas with us now. We’re hoping for many more.

From Debra Coplan:

This is Peaches Claus looking merry and bright in her Ms. Claus hat.
(She actually tolerated the hat for about 3 seconds. Bah humbug was more like it.)

She was rescued as an older cat about 3 years ago after her owner died. We love her dearly!  Jerry helped named her. [JAC: I forgot this]

From Katherine Rennegarbe:

Rascal was stuck in a tree for 18 hours. We got him down by rigging a laundry basket with ropes and hoisting it up. Rascal then jumped in and was lowered to the ground. He rewarded his rescuers by biting their Christmas presents.

From Keith Cook:

Izzy, the now=deceased cat of our daughter. 

We (Izzy & I) had an interesting relationship, she has a lovely burial
site in a small hobby orchard overlooking our small harbourside bay.

From Beth and Ron Mrtinez:

This is our cat Lulu who we found sneezing and very sick in our parking lot right before the holidays. We have nursed her back to health and she is very convinced this is a cat tree that we keep putting toys on. She’s successfully knocked down all but a few ornaments near the top but is currently working hard to reach those!

Please find two holiday pix of my Devon Rex kitties, Mendel (born March 04, 2023) and the Yodapink (born September 20, 2023), both posing in front of festively red projector lights. While I tried to be Christmassy, the lighting does strike me as perhaps more like Festivus from Seinfeld, a nod to the show’s anti-holiday. But we tried.

You can clearly see the impact of their mutations in a keratin gene, right? Their fur is truncated and wavy. In addition, they are dilute, which means they’d be orange without the dilute mutation. Or so I gather from Basepaws, which gave me Mendel’s genetics. Still waiting for the Yodapink’s to come back. They are half brothers. I love my “apricot” babies.

From Sue Wearn: Murphy, all tricked out with a Christmas bow and jingle bells:

Murphy is the neighbor’s cat and he visits regularly. He’s maybe 4. We’ve had our own cats for years, but are on a cat-share for now. Murphy got a new Temptations treat dispenser for Christmas!

From Jake:

Here is Jimmy, our tuxedo cat, about to take down his prey.  (Moments later he did, some ornaments did not survive, but his cuteness got him out of trouble):

From Merilee:

Carmen Dingle supervising the Xmas table setting.

From Peter Lindsay:

Here he is – or was; my most esteemed bengal Taz, napping in a holiday wreath. He moved on to the great letterbox in the sky several years ago, The wreath is placed on the table every year hoping for his return. Nothing yet, but the experiment will continue to run.

From Susan Harrison:

Boris and Natasha are too mellow to climb the tree or break ornaments, but will always hop up on the couch when promised treats…

From Reese:

This is Tibby, my granddaughter’s other cat besides the demon cat Woodford. When Tibby was adopted from the shelter she was the only kitten left in the kitty pen, perhaps because of her bad eye. Now she is eight years old. She has always been shy, and gets along with Eddie the d*g, but does not like Woodford

Last one from Steven Eakman:

Sorry, I suspect this is too late, but fwiw here is Nigel in his Christmas house:

Note, The contest is now CLOSED.  Save your pics for next year (if we’re still here). Thanks to all the participants for sending in their photos!