Merry Christmas and happy First Day of Koynezaa! We’ve collected 64 photos of cats from readers, and we’ll introduce them with two images. The first, clearly depicting a Jewish cat, was sent in by Stacy (not her cat, but a meme):
And an introductory greeting from Laura:
We don’t currently serve as a cat’s staff, but we’re out in Palm Springs for a few days. and saw this bit of graffiti art:
NOW FOR THE READERS’ CATS:
Andrew Petto’s cat, Grace. wreathed in a wreath:
Grace was rescued by our granddaughter from a barn as part of a litter abandoned by their mother. She was the last one unclaimed. After waging war against pathogens from at least 3 phyla, Grace thrived and grew to the contented feline she is today.
From Dave and Brandie Aylsworth:
Here’s is a picture of Andy and Emily, 1 year-old sisters who we starting serving after a friend moved and couldn’t keep them. They’re enjoying their first Xmas with us in Tampa on their new tower.
From Rachel Sperling:
Gloria (orange) and Cordelia (brown tabby) enjoying their cat-safe menorah on the last night of Hanukkah last year. Gloria is three and Cordelia is seven; they love everyone except each other (but they mostly get along).
From Linda Taylor:
Maxi and Milo spend the summer in the catio under a tree so naturally they spend Christmas under the tree. I only meant to have one kitten but when I went to pick him up I discovered they came as a two pack, like milk at Costco.
From Kurt:
Neo the Cat arrived at his permanent home from the animal shelter in November 2024. This photo was taken on either 25 or 26 of December 2024 showing that the then 5 month old Neo had decided that the bowl on the Christmas table was a purrfectly fine location for a nap.
From Wesley Segarra:
Here is a picture of one of my cats, Finn. He loves sleeping under the tree because he finally learned to not sleep in the tree.
From Kira Heller:
Gitel of the Tetons investigates our Chanukah sagebrush before booting it off the windowsill.
From Sarah Nunes:
Stanley is a 14 yr old shelter cat; my daughter volunteered with the shelter her first summer home from college and convinced us to adopt him. He remained with us when she left home permanently after graduation.
From Naama Pat-El:
This is Kiki, the most recent addition to the TexasLinguist tribe. She definitely knows who the real present is.
From Miriam Meyerhoff, yet another Jewish cat:
Honu was a rescue cat, now 14 years old. She came from a house with eighteen cats and was very shy and prone to biting when she came to live with us, nearly three years ago. She didn’t purr and didn’t like being touched at all. My husband’s extraordinary patience with her has worked wonders. She now likes to curl up with you on the couch, plays with toys and will come and meet strangers. ‘Honu’ is Hawaiian for ’turtle’. We know she’s a calico and not a tortoiseshell, but it’s a good name for a cat.
From James Blase:
I don’t celebrate religious holidays (except Dec 25; which is my birthday – I’ll be 75), but here is the late Flats Cat Blase, helping celebrate “Festivus” on Dec 23 of last year:
From Terry McLean: my favorite species and my favorite beer:
Here is my Christmas cat photo contribution. Thought you might appreciate a ginger cat / Timothy Taylor’s Landlord combo. Ruby adopted us 5 years ago and is now the Landlord. A perfect angel. I think she has realized that she can’t fit in the Christmas tree anymore.
From David Brunsting:
Here is a photo of our kitten Hazel insinuating herself in our Christmas tree. She is our first cat and I am almost 70! Your blog inspired us and we are so glad to have Hazel in our lives!”
Howie Neufeld doesn’t have a holiday picture, but did send in an awesome cat:
My favorite photos of my son, Ross, when he was 3 in 1991, with his cat (found in my backyard when I lived in Oregon, breed unknown). The cat was named Oscar, because he was a slob in terms of cleaning himself when first adopted (was so small then I had to feed him with a plastic syringe of milk). But he was a gentle cat. When we moved 5 miles away in NC to a new home, he disappeared for 6 weeks, only to show up at my former home. We were fortunate to get him back. Oscar died around 1995, young I admit, but the vet thinks he got into some bad food on his journey back to his original home, and that unfortunately shortened his life. A great cat – he would walk with us just like a puppy when we took hikes in the nearby woods. And never once scratched anyone.
Ross received his MS in cybersecurity policy from Ga Tech on Saturday, where he works as a cyber security expert.
From Carl Morano:
Angel with ceramic tree. Angel was a stray kitten that appeared in our backyard 2 years ago. After a week of visits for food, we took her in.
From Paul T.:
Apollo was checking out the newly-placed presents. Thankfully, the indoor tree has never been much of an interest to him, nor to our greyhound.
From Lucinda and Stan:
Here is a picture of our cat Frillybear, who loves to “help” with all chores, especially ones that make enticing noises.
From Cathy Hamm:
This is Wrigley, “The Great Destroyer of Christmas Trees.” We adopted him from our local cat shelter as a kitten. He is almost two years old and this is the second Christmas tree he has expertly dismantled. The tree is now back in storage under the stairs. It’s a good thing we adore Wrigley, and he is still getting his favorite toys for Christmas. Just not under the tree, LOL!
From:
Yeti (white Birman-ish lady on left) and Jessie (Turbo torby on right) waiting to share their morning fancyfeast. These girls started life in a feral colony. Were captured and neutered in a cat-ice raid, and adopted as “bonded pair”. Supposed to be siblings but the odds?
From Anne Lear:
The attached photo is of Tigger, a dedicated foodie, sidling across the table at Christmas dinner and aiming to approach the plate on the right without being noticed. He had already been slipped pieces of turkey and was having difficulty waiting for his share of the scraps.The house rule is ‘no cats on the table at mealtimes’, which the cats have interpreted as meaning ‘at least one foot on the chair’.
Tigger was adopted as an extra to his brother Rusty because he was being bullied in the kitten cage at the vet. He was an ebullient character and an excellent mouser, but afraid of rats – one evening he sat beside me and watched a rat as it ran over my foot and into the bushes. Unfortunately he lived only 9 years before dying of renal failure of unknown cause.
From Amy Perry:
Our sole outdoor Christmas decoration every year is this lighted star of Bethlehem in our front window. The black cat in the back, Circe, is 100% black and so skittish that she rarely lets us touch her. The cat in the front, Ella, a dilute tortoiseshell, frequently asks to be petted and we oblige her.
From Ginger K., another Jewish cat:
Attached is a Catnukkah photo of my friend’s cat from 2024. Kitteh’s name is Jackson and he is about 3 years old. He is a Very. Big. Kitteh. Not a chonker, but a tall and large-framed kitteh. He is cautious around strangers, but once he gets used to you he’ll allow you to pet him.
From Divy we get Jango:
KitKat extraordinaire, Hili lover and master of his staff. [JAC: Jango is enamored of Hili and gazes at her photos often.]
From Donna Harris in Winnipeg:
This photo is not the very best pic I’ve taken, but it has the most meaning. We adopted Brillo 2 years ago. Pretty much feral. He’s also FIV positive. It’s taken him a long,long time to get used to us and our other 3 cats. But he’s come a long way. We still can’t hold him and pick him up. But, he loves getting his fur brushed!
This pic was a surprise. He found a new place to nap recently!!
From Alex Skucas:
This is Oreo. Also known as The Great Fox Chaser. When he is not actively hunting chipmunks, birds, squirrels, rabbits, snakes, and mice, he is lying in wait behind a tree or bush hoping for a fox to pass by. When a fox gets close enough, Oreo will spring out and chase the fox over quite a long distance. It is a game for Oreo and neither he nor the fox seem to realize that there is a significant size discrepancy between the two that actually favors the fox. Here is Oreo in the morning after a night of predation.
From Tamara Sharoff, whose cat apparently wrote the entry:
My name is Squirt, a name I acquired when rescued as a young kitten 18 years ago outside a cafe in California. I spent my first 16 years living the good life as a barn cat. Now retired to the indoors. Not super crazy about the 2 leggers, but I’m slowly warming to them and their craziness like this weird thing behind me.
From Regina Jammen:
Here is Max, our orange tabby cat. When he is not gazing out the window here in Boston, Max loves decorated trees, lengthy books read to him, and lots of hugs.
From Tom Steinberg:
You’ve met Sparkle in her apple tree from the photo I send last June that you kindly featured. I was touched and honored by that. Here she is in her Usual Spot in Eugene with her orange highlights (hence the name), and one coy white paw. Her paws, belly, and chest are white.
Sparkle is helping me wrap a present to a granddaughter. And this was last minute! I took the photo ~ 15 minutes before Deadline.
From Kevin Henderson in New Mexico:
Iris, Jules, Lyra. Waiting for Advent calendar salmon treats.
From Pamela we have “Freddy, the Atheist Cat”:
From Mary Lou and Jim Mayfield in Iowa:
“Tuxedo” dresses his best for the Holidays!
From Dave McCrady:
Say hello to Murphy the tomcat, circa 1975 or so. A rescue, with us since he was a kitten. Murphy was part of our family for the next 14 years or so. He loved a good tussle and knew that when I put on the heavy mitt, claws were allowed. He would latch on with all four feet.
From David Jorling:
I would send a video with the train running but the cat, named Mia, would knock it over. The train is a model of the Milwaukee Road’s “Cannonball”, which was the only commuter train in Milwaukee that ran from Watertown WI to Milwaukee.
As you will see from the photo, I have an HO scale train around my holiday tree. Last night we had guests for dinner and I turned on the train. After dinner I went into our living room and Mia was on one of the chairs looking at me and yelling (meowing) at me like she had never done before. I turned off the train and she immediately went across the tracks under the tree and curled up. She was yelling at me to turn off the train so she could cross the tracks, apparently.
From Steve:
Mabel is the 8th kitten we’ve fostered this year. We were a little sad when the previous kittens were adopted, but they went to good homes.
When my wife left 40 years of breakable ornaments in storage and started putting plastic ones on the tree, I went to the shelter and filled out the paperwork. Termed a ” failed foster”, Mabel has found her forever home.
Addendum: “Mabel takes just one ornament off the tree every day.”
From Darrell Ernst:
This pic is of Princess Leia, relaxing after rearranging the Christmas Village to her liking.
She is one of three cats we currently share our home with. We found her at the local Humane Society when she was about three months old. She was a stray trapped with some litter mates then handed over to the HS.
She is the archetypal cat, lithe, strong and pure grace in every movement. When playing she often stops the other cats in their tracks with an impossible seeming maneuver. Like a ballerina ninja. She is also possibly the sweetest creature I’ve ever known.
From Jay Lonner in the state of Washington:
Attached find a photo of Fitz and Ollie, our ~7 year old mackerel tabbies that we adopted as a bonded pair from the local humane society. They’re sweet boys who, despite their destructive tendencies, are a constant source of joy and love. What I find interesting about them from a biological perspective is that they are basically wild type cats — no pedigrees here! They are phenotypically indistinguishable (at least to my untrained eye) from African wildcats, and I appreciate the combination of chaos and cuddliness they bring to our otherwise staid lives.
From Debra Coplan:
This is Peaches trying to help celebrate Hannukah as best as she knows how. Latkes were out of the question.
She is about 14 now. Adopted about 6 years ago after her owner died. I found her in an ad in the newspaper.
Happy Hannukah to all!
From Reese Vaughn:
Cider and his sister Razz (short for Raspberry) survived Hurricane Harvey in 2017 so they are eight years old. Thus is as Christmasy as they get.
Also from Reese:
This is Razz enjoying a Christmas treat from a hand-painted oyster shell, a traditional Texas Coast ornament. No, she didn’t eat the elf; she’s just blocking his body in the photo.
From Simon:
Balian (foreground) and Harry (headshot in the background) are now 3 and a half. In the ten days since this picture was taken they have been selectively removing labels from gifts put under the tree as well as a number of the lower decorations. No evidence of climbing it yet. They are about to be joined by our kids, their spouses and an 18-month-old grandson who enjoys a fraught personal relationship with his parents’ cat. He has yet to meet these two, and I anticipate a strong disapproval from the cats. And keen interest from the kid, from whom the first distinguishable work that I heard was “kitty”
From Susan Harrison:
Boris is seen here making a polite request: “When will my ornaments be up?” He and Natasha are always pleased to have the tree brought in, adding visual interest to their domain. Luckily, though, at age 13 and with their laid-back Ragdoll personalities, the two of them are not much of a threat to dangly breakable objects.
From Bob Woolley:
This is Lucy, a few years ago. The festive garb stayed on her for less than a minute, because she found them incompatible with her comfort and dignity. I think you can see her displeasure in her face.
From Peggy:
This is Minnie (Minuit) on a well-deserved rest after helping me put all the candles in for the last night of Hannukah. She is 16 and this is her 15th Hannukah; her first was spent in a Michigan barn with no Jews around). Still, I told her she cannot help me light the candles. Despite her Hebrew name, Minnie’s sister Tula (תולה is short for חתולה) wanted nothing to do with the menorah.
From Kathleen Vincent:
Perspicacious is his name. But we call him Percy.
From Bobbie Mason-Gamer:
We adopted the appropriately-named Noel from a shelter about a month ago. She likes the Christmas tree, alternating between naughty (batting the decorations) and nice (resting underneath). It must be a big surprise for a cat to suddenly find an indoor tree covered with things resembling cat toys, so I can’t fault little Noel for wanting to play with it!
From Steven Eakman:
Here is our holiday cat photo for this year. It features a new addition to our family:
This is Neville*. He is the successor to our beloved Nigel, who appeared in several prior holiday photo postings. Nigel was the benevolent ruler of this household for 17 years but, sadly, left us last February.
Neville is about to turn six months old and is a pure feline chaos generator. Boundless kitten energy and the classic “who, me?” cattitude. In the photo he sports a bow/ribbon that he pilfered from a holiday package and subsequently had great fun playing with. The photo was taken as evidence of his guilt, not that he was at all repentant…
*No, Neville is NOT named after Chamberlain, Longbottom, or any other real or fictional human of that name.
From Ashleigh G.:
This is my cat Grace who died last october. Here she is in her Christmas dress:
From Susan Wearn, who calls this “not much of a holiday cat.”
Here is my pitiful contribution of Murphy, the neighbor’s visiting cat, with a German incense smoker in the background. Feel free not to use this! I tried to take his picture under the tree, but he was having none of it. He behaves very much like the male orange cat he is.
From Roz:
Mendel and Yoda bundled in a shawl on their heated blanket. (We do winter rather than holidays over here—too dangerous to light Hanukkah candles with Devon Rexes around.)
Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas.
From Erik Levin:
This is Schrodinger. The bag is his holiday bag from a friend, with tube treats and a new blanket. He is fifteen years old, arthritic, and kidney stage three, as well as a true smuggler lap boy for life, and still a fierce bug killer and winter mouser. They find a way in when the temperature drops below -10C.
From Ursula Goodenough:
Edith in her Christmas stocking, a gift to her lover Ursula
Another Jewish cat from Michele Miller:
Photo of my Yiddish cat, Meshuggah—she earns her name (‘crazy’ in Yiddish) as she is quite the hyper scaredy cat also known for wild zoomies. If you look carefully, you will notice her left ear is ’tipped’ showing she was once part of a feral colony. Usually ferals are tipped after TNR (’trap and release’ neutering) but for some reason she was taken in by a rescue where I adopted her at 9 months old—I work professional with quite a few rescues and end up taking home the ones no one else wants to adopt.
Here’s Matthew Cobb’s cat Harry next to “an Xmas bauble the children painted to resemble Harry.”
Harry is 10, born on Halloween when a heavily pregnant stray cat walked into a neighbour’s back yard. She had 3 kittens. The first we heard about this was when they escaped at about 7 weeks old and the neighbor went nuts looking for them. They were up a tree. [Matthew took one who became Harry.]
From Elizabeth Leahey-Martinez
This is Lulu, full name Louise. She appeared one day in our parking lot late November 2 years ago and was quickly a foster fail as we fell in love with her. This is her favorite time of year as there is a tree in the house covered in toys!
From James Joy:
On July 4, 2021, my wife and I returned from a family get-together to find a very small kitten on our patio, all alone. We of course adopted her, making her the tenth rescue cat in our household. We named her Coco, but as time went on she earned the nickname Punky. A few months later, we tried to put a Santa hat on her to take a photo for our Christmas card. She refused to wear the hat, so this photo was our Christmas card.
From David Riddell, a Kiwi:
When our cat Kifi was little she used to climb up our old tinsel Christmas tree (an heirloom from my wife’s family), and she still gets very excited when it goes up each year. She loves Christmas time -always lots of new boxes to check out for size!
From John Wilson:
Sunspot is dressed up as one of the holiday lions guarding the Art Institute of Chicago (it was his Halloween costume).
From Taryn Overton:
This is Hitchens. He joined me in my second year of vet school and has been my sidekick through five states and seven moves. He’s 15 years young. Favorite pastimes: zoomies around the home, sunbathing no matter the temperature, and batting the eyelashes of his staff at 3:30 am when he’s hungry.
From Greg:
This is a photo of Perry. He is patiently waiting for Santa.
From Stephanie: Another Jewish cat, and with Hanukkah gelt (traditional foil-wrapped chocolate coins).
Lulu is a Jewish cat, of course, but isn’t sure whether she wants to try the gelt because she thinks the foil on the outside might irritate her fillings. Just kidding, she doesn’t have many teeth because she had most of them pulled (she probably could have used some fillings).
From Iain:
I hope this gets to you in time. Here’s Jemima. She is floofy and likes to sit in her scratching box. She also has a rumbly purr and can hold a full conversation with her humans.
From Julia:
This is our ginger bit of fluff, Marlowe. Named after Shakespeare’s friend Christopher Marlowe for his colouring and our suspicion that he will also meet his end in a tavern brawl. Here he is meeting Santa with my daughter. A bit of a scared kitty.
From Wendy:
Gracie! Peace on earth, or at least in bed.
Here is a cat named Lucky whose staff is Irene:
Happy holidays from PCC(E) and, I presume, all the cats.
