Dear Ferret Folks-
 
My most *exciting* Christmas, by far, came years before I held my first
ferret.
 
I was in college, but home for the holidays at my mother's house.  Her
living room is a huge space, two stories high.  There is a staircase
running along one wall that brings you up to a balcony that overlooks the
whole thing.  Evita Peron waved to adoring audiences from less imposing
balconies.  It really is a HUGE space, with a slanted, Swiss Chalet
ceiling broken up by skylights.
 
Well, my Mom really likes her Christmas trees.  That year, she wanted one
tall enough to brush her living room ceiling.  We're talking twenty feet,
here.  We didn't go *buy* a tree that year, we went into the woods behind
our house and sawed one down.  Sawing a twenty foot tree down isn't that
hard, white pine is pretty soft, but getting it through the side door of
the house was a very special form of entertainment, one in which I hope
never to engage in again.  Then there was the question of *erecting * it.
 
Have you ever seen a copperplate engraving of a nineteenth century
clipper ship?  One of those three hundred foot long wooden ships with
acres and acres of sails that were the fastest things that ever moved
trade good under sail?  Yankee ancestors of mine made fortunes operating
the things, but they didn't leave any instructions for erecting the
masts, and fastening them into place, and you know, we really could
have used that advice for our Christmas tree.  It was basically a ship's
mast with branches.  We finally settled for wiring it upright to the
decorative ironwork of the second story balcony.  Once we found a
water-holding tree base *big* enough to accomodate it.  They don't sell
those at Wal-Mart, I can tell you.
 
(Sigh.) Getting it up, in water, and stable was not the end of our
quest-no no no no no.  There was the issue of decorating it.  Think yards
and yards and yards of lights, hundreds of balls, pounds of candy canes.
I am *not* exaggerating.* This was a deadly expensive proposition, but
Mom was willing to foot the bill.  Ladders were involved.  It took hours.
 
Finally, we stood back, the three of us (me, my Mom, my sister Caroline)
and surveyed our work.  It was impressive.  It was more than that.  It
was a grand, and an august accomplishment.  It was like something you
might have found at a really good department store, back before
everything became cheesy, back when I was a little kid.The three of us
sat in the soft sofas of the darkened living rom.and just stared at the
thousands of lights, talking quietly.
 
Then, the INTEREST began.  It was a feline interest.  Perhaps two months
before, our cat Imhotep (named for the great architect, later deified,
who designed the first pyramid in Egypt) had gifted us with nine, count
'em NINE kittens.  Well, we really liked them, so we hadn't tried very
hard to give them away, although some had been promised to homes, and
just hadn't made the transfer yet.  Eighteen eyes, shiny in the lights
wound around the tree, and reflected endlessly in the hanging glass bulbs
appeared at the base of the tree.  We weren't too worried.  What could
they do, the tree was *tied* to the balcony ironwork with copper core
speaker wire.  They were only kittens.
 
The kittens slipped into the tree one by one, until there were no more
kittens to be seen.  As I said, these were two months old, not fit in one
hand sized kittens.  More like half grown cats.  And there began to be a
strange noise in the living room, as if the tree was being tossed about
by a high wind.  Well , it wasn't, but the branches were starting to be
whipped back and forth.  The first ball fell, and smashed on the floor.
 
I went to the tree with the intention of removing the kittens from the
tree.  Ha.  Ha ha, ha ha ha.  What an incredibly naive impulse.  Remove
the kittens from the tree, indeed.  The kittens chose not to be removed
from the tree, and that was that.
 
It became clea that the kittens were now playing a very vigourous game of
"chase" up the tree and down the tree, as fast as they could go.  Around
and around.  The entire tree was wobbling and bouncing ominously.  Many
balls were now falling to the ground and smashing.  My Mom was yelling.
I was yelling.  My sister was yelling.  The dog was barking.  Our adult
cats (including Imhotep, the kittens mother) were hiding beneath sturdy
pieces of furniture.
 
When the fall began, it was slow and graceful, sort of like the scene
in the Leonardo DiCaprio version of the Titanic when the smokestacks
start to go.  Poing!  Poing!  Poing!  The guy wires snap, and the red
smokestacks start to tumble into the ocean.  In our living room, I
distinctly remember hearing one dry snap as one of the speaker wires
lashing the tree trunk to the balcony's ironwork parted, but the rest
were drowned out by the sound of yelling relatives, the barking dog,
clinking glass balls, tinkling ropes of lights tightening in bad ways,
and creaking wood.  It started out slow, but contuinued faster and
faster.
 
Fortunately, I backed up when I realized the tree was going over, so
it didn't land on me.  When it actually hit the floor, it spewed glass
balls, candy canes, and terrified half-cats like missiles.  It landed,
and bounced several times, making musical crashing, smashing, clinking
noises with every impact.  Sections of lights went out.  Finally, it
lay still.
 
I distinctly remember saying "Merry (*&^%^& Christmas."
Alexandra in MA
[Posted in FML issue 5050]