Christmas Cats: A Literary Companion

Wendy Christensen

Hey, Mom, come quick, you gotta see this! Two snowplow guys are fighting out in the road. One of 'em slid off the street into the wall and then the other guy showed up and hit two mailboxes and crashed into the first one, and then the one guy took off his gloves and threw 'em at the other guy, and both their hats fell off and…"

"Ryan! Go back outside, can't you see I'm busy?" Her chilly words freeze the boy's gush of words. "And take Jen with you. She's making too much noise with that game box of hers. I have to have these done by three-thirty."

From her perch on the window ledge, Moonflower raises her head and gazes, questioning and bemused, at the excited child and his overwrought parent. "Humans!" she seems to mutter to herself, though the only sound is her gentle purr. In a tiny, graceful, quintessentially feline ritual, she blinks three times, stretches one paw toward the sun, and returns to her feline dreams.

Snow-booted feet scamper, the door slams. For a moment, all is quiet. Then, in a sudden burst of guilt and worry, the beleaguered woman jumps up, runs to the door, flings it open, and shrieks, "And stay away from those plows!" Sighing, she goes back to the cluttered kitchen table, where she's hand-painting two dozen paper plates for the cookie exchange. Much as she'd like to, she can't skip this competitive annual neighborhood ritual—and its ritual obligations.

Oh, those obligations! The checklists, the gift lists, the to-do lists. The expectations, the guilt, the commitments, the compulsions, the burdens, the chores, the shopping. Finding a parking place at the mall. Baking twelve dozen cookies by Tuesday morning. Facing dreaded Mother-in-Law, and her perfectionist wrath, specially honed for inciting holiday stress and fear. And what if Uncle Bill gets drunk and disorderly at dinner again? The hype, the craziness, the expense—they get worse every year. But what can a mother do?

The answer is right in front of her, dozing and purring on the window ledge in the sunshine.

Christmas, at its best, is a timeless ritual recognition of human kinship, and of our deep connection with the rhythms of nature. By observing this mid-winter milestone, we join hands in an endless chain with our fellow humans, past, present, and future. As part of this great chain, we celebrate in faith, anticipate in hope, and honor with love and humility the return of the sun. Each year, our long-ago ancestors watched with alarm as the hours of daylight inexorably dwindled. With mounting disquiet and dread, they anxiously measured the times of light and darkness. Would the sun fade away forever this time? We can only imagine their relief and gladness when the decline stopped, and—very gradually—the daylight time started to, once again, lengthen. The winter solstice salutes the life-giving sun, and commemorates its unhurried but unmistakable return. Over the millennia, various religions have overlaid their own feasts and festivals on the ancient solstice observance, deepening its vitality and significance, layer by layer.

We humans need rituals like this, just as we need stories, those universal narratives we repeat to each other and to ourselves, to help decode the mysteries and enigmas of life, the universe, and everything. Stories and rituals keep us grounded, connected, and sane. But here in the U.S., in the early twenty-first century, the rituals of Christmas have become a kind of ritual madness.

Cats, as anyone who has lived in their company knows, adore rituals. For such intelligent, curious, and adaptable animals, they're endearingly fond of their daily routines. But unlike humans, who tend to overload rituals until they collapse beneath the weight of expectation and disappointment, cats treasure the simple, cyclical daily-ness of life's routines. A special food bowl, filled at a particular time, in a certain place, by a familiar person who announces dinner with the same reassuring words and phrases, in the same loving tones—that, to a cat, is the most perfect of rituals. No hidden agendas, no point-scoring, no score-settling, no frills, no surfeit. Just ease, peace and grace, cheer, comfort, and sharing—curiously, just what Christmas is supposed to be.

"I'm just trying to create Christmas memories for my kids," wails frazzled Mom. (Frazzled, now there's a Christmassy word.) But what will Ryan and Jen really remember? Probably a cranky, snappish mother who was too busy with some silly project to relish the marvelously absurd spectacle of hatless snowplow drivers boxing without gloves on an icy road.

Such an unexpected bit of performance art is something that only a child, or a rare adult who's retained a childlike appreciation of absurdity, irony, and serendipity, can savor. People are fond of saying that they "do up" Christmas for their children, for the sake of creating memories. But memories can't be selectively "created"—not with the best of intentions, not with any amount of money. For a kid, the most enduring memories are zings out of the blue, ricocheting off the cozily familiar: the ritual of playing in the snow all day during vacation week, enlivened and rendered indelible by a small, unpredictable drama.

For Ryan, Christmas will eventually blur into an undifferentiated (if fond) haze of trees and lights, tinsel and glitz wrapped packages and family dinners. But those battling snowplow drivers will live forever, in sharp and vivid detail. Too bad Mom missed it.

For too many of us, Christmas is no longer a celebration, but a relentlessly stressful, crazy-making jumble of the social, the commercial, the traditional, the religious, the personal—too many agendas, too much hype, too much of everything, slopped into a slender, sacred vessel never meant to contain such a potentially toxic brew. Impossibly overwhelming expectations and hopes are much too frequently squeezed into that One Big Day.

Merchants rely on Christmas spending as their chief engine of business success. Charitable organizations turn loose their slickest copywriters to fire up guilt and get those checks rolling in. Strife-torn families who should know better somehow talk themselves into believing that celebrating Christmas together will magically heal decades-old wounds, or at least paper over, with gaudy gift wrap, deep personal, religious, and political differences. Religious leaders try, with ever-declining success, to refocus attention on the holiday's spiritual aspects.

To a cat, though, Christmas is just another lovely day for her favorite rituals, spiced with a lively dash of the unexpected. Moonflower and her sister Rapunzel enjoy a long winter's nap on their sunny window ledge, their day punctuated by play, exploration, and extra snuggling time with their favorite people. The cats are delighted that Ryan and Jennifer have been staying home all day instead of disappearing each morning. Even better, a real tree (maybe with real birds?) has magically taken root in the living room. Sparkly, blinking baubles dangle enticingly. Rapunzel, shall we climb? Yes, let's!

Do Moonflower and Rapunzel know that today is called "Christmas"? No, they do not. Would they care, if they did know? No, they would not. Naming a day cannot preserve a moment in time. There is no saving it, only living fully in that moment, tasting and smelling and touching and reveling in it. This moment, the eternal now, beckons eternally. There's that delightfully unexpected tree to be climbed, dangly sparkles to be batted, chased, pounced upon, demolished. And there may yet be birds in that tree!

If there's any agreement about Christmas, it's that it's all about gifts. On one hand, this obsession is a big part of modern Christmas's binge-and-burden mentality. But look more closely. Blink three times. Let the word tickle your whiskers. Extend a curious paw and tap its deeper meaning. Is it a coincidence that another word for gift is "present"? The present moment, however astonishing or mundane, is the only moment we, any of us, have. It is our gift. Cats know this. Humans have forgotten. Who is the more intelligent species?

Perhaps it's time to accept the gifts of wisdom and good sense from our cats. Perhaps it's time to step back, decelerate, unplug, simplify, clarify. Let's get off this roller coaster of exertion, emotion, exhaustion, elation, and enervation that pretends to be a sacred mid-winter festival. Moonflower, Rapunzel, and their kin will happily teach us that it's okay to say "No!" to excess, "No!" to acquisition obsession, "No!" to compulsive, competitive shopping, "No!" to the caricature of itself modern Christmas has become.

Instead, if we pay attention, they'll show us how to celebrate a low-key, low-stress, back-to-basics, cat-friendly, cat-safe holiday. You can get off the competitive shopping treadmill. Parties are optional. Really! Think before accepting invitations: Do I really want to go out—or would I rather stay home with my family and enjoy a quiet evening?

Cats are polite animals—another lesson humans would do well to learn. As we accept their gifts of everyday peace, sense, and wisdom, we can reciprocate by devising creative ways to enable them to safely and fully share in the best of our holiday traditions and celebrations. It's so much healthier for all to ban dangerous foods, decorations, and plants from your home than to burden your holiday with more reasons to fret. Do you still feel dragooned by empty custom to serve particular foods and display particular decorations? Follow Moonflower's lead instead, and feel gloriously free to enjoy whatever you like.

The only downside to offering a resplendent Christmas tree-gymnasium—sturdy, firmly anchored to the ceiling and ornamented with soft and pretty baubles—is that you aren't small or agile enough to revel in this novel pleasure. But Rapunzel and Moonflower are sure you share their spirit of adventure, and would clamber up if you could, sending all those crocheted snowflakes, tiny knitted mittens, and paper chains flying.

Because cats are highly sensitive to stress in their people, simply refusing to buy into the commercial Christmas rat race will bring immediate benefits for human and feline alike. Keeping to normal schedules and household routines makes the season bright and balanced, mellow and memorable—a quiet celebration rather than a riotous, unsettling muddle. Remember: Despite how the glossy magazines would have it, Christmas isn't a decorating contest, a culinary competition, a test of financial one-upsmanship, or a social status derby. Overstimulation, frantic busyness, worry, and overeating can be disastrous to feline and human health—not to mention destructive of the very felicity and serenity the holidays, at their best, promise.

No—Christmas is a joyous festival of faith, hope, renewal, and connection. Since the dawn of time, like our ancestors, we greet the gradually returning light and warmth of the sun with joy, relief, and gratitude. The ancient Egyptians, the first humans to keep company with cats in their homes, saw, in the light glowing within their cats' eyes, the great god Ra, the sun himself. It's no wonder that the Egyptians elevated the cat into their pantheon of deities in the form of Bast, or Bastet, a goddess with the body of a woman and the head of a cat. Bast was goddess of all good things: wisdom, music, dancing, fertility, sensual pleasure, happiness, warmth, and basking in the sun. Bast, goddess of the Moon, held the fire of the sun in her eyes overnight, preserving its light and warmth for her people. The ancient Egyptian word for cat is "miu " or "mau"—which also means "light."

Those of us who share our lives with felines can glory in this light, in this small, graceful symbol of our deep connection with nature, right in our own homes. How lucky we are! We possess the secret antidote to the ritual madness that modern Christmas has become. We can see the light, if only we care, if only we take the time to look. The answer is right in front of us, dozing and purring on the window ledge in the sunshine.

A good-hearted, cat-loving lady of my acquaintance once told me one of the saddest Christmas stories I've ever heard. As a young married woman with very little money, she was about to celebrate her first Christmas with her new in-laws. She took up her crochet hook and knitting needles and fashioned slippers, doilies, hats, and scarves. Her gifts were met with withering scorn: Too cheap to buy real gifts; Happy Hands at Home. This puzzled her. In the home in which she grew up, where cats were welcome and handmade gifts treasured, a prized Christmas tradition was the reading of "The Gift of the Magi." In that classic Christmas story by O. Henry, a penniless young wife sells her long, beautiful hair so she can buy her beloved husband an elegant platinum fob for his heirloom watch. Meanwhile, he sells his watch so he can buy her a set of tortoiseshell combs with jeweled rims—perfect for her glorious long hair.

Like O. Henry's young couple, cats don't stint, don't calculate, don't hold back. They don't hide their gifts on a high closet shelf, saving them for some future Christmas that might never come. They never fret that their gifts will be deemed unworthy. A gift is a creation of the moment, of the eternal now. The purr, the snuggle, the fond headbutt, the dead mouse, the soggy favorite toy… these gifts are ours now, right now. Give what you have, say our cats, generously and from your heart—and do it right now.

Cats aren't burdened by fears of being inadequate in the sight of their mothers-in-law, or of disappointing the neighborhood cookie mandarins. They're not in thrall to holiday cliches or stereotypes. They feel no obligation to conform to anyone's expectations. They're not tormented by guilt or regret, or psychologically paralyzed by trying to "create memories" or resurrect the supposed perfections of childhood Christmases.

Christmas and every other day, a cat lives in the blessed, eternal now. As the wise, cat-loving Ray Bradbury writes in Dandelion Wine-. "You're in the present, you're trapped in a young now or an old now, but there is no other now to be seen." We humans see all those other nows, those Christmases of the past, those idealized, impossibly perfect Christmases, those Christmases that never were. We compare and contrast, we regret and worry. We stay up nights, fitfully fretting about the Christmases to come—the obligations, the expectations, all those lists. Our cats don't. They simply live in each day, each moment. Each day, Christmas or not, is a splendid new gift to be pounced upon, savored, relished. Welcome Christmas with a swelling heart and swelling purr, not with dread and obsession. Relish Christmas as it was meant to be, in reverence, in humility, in gratitude, in bliss.