Christmas has just sneaked up on us

I know, it's such a cliche phrase. But this year it's true. (It's also true that sneaked is grammatically correct; snuck is wrong. Promise.)

We didn't even get a tree this year. The first year we were married, the Christmas of 2005, I was adamant about the tree thing. We had such a small apartment, and I can't even remember where we put it. Somewhere, obviously. In 2006, 2007 and 2008 — all years in our larger, but not huge apartment — we also got trees. I remember thinking last year that I was so excited for the next Christmas because we would have a house and there would hopefully be multiple location I could choose from to put a tree.

It just didn't happen this year. Oh well. And truthfully, the cats would have destroyed it anyway. How do you people with pets do Christmas decorations? It's a small miracle my kitties haven't completely consumed every houseplant I have. They most definitely would wreck decorations.

Speaking of felines, do you want some proper introductions? If you're not a cat lover, you can stop reading here. Seriously. And if you've been a regular reader of my blog since August, some of this won't be news.

Here's the (long) summary:

Upon moving here in August, we discovered a little, skinny tabby that stuck around our house, rubbed up against our legs and many times tried to come inside. She was pregnant, she was affectionate, and she was the neighbor's. However, they don't do inside animals — and quite frankly, they don't do animals in general judging on how skinny she was — so she was basically a very nice stray. After she had her kittens in my window well and it snowed early, I brought them inside. Neighbors didn't seem to care. Had I made a big deal about them being in my window well, they would have just put them on their back patio anyway — like they did with her first litter THREE MONTHS earlier — and consequently let them wander off as they became old enough. I wasn't having any of that, so I fed them as they got old enough (neighbors wouldn't have) and offered to find them homes. The neighbors were thrilled. Giving away those four little kitties was one of the more traumatic things in my life, but I did it.

Sometime during this kitten phase, another cat showed up. It was warm enough to keep our downstairs window cracked so "Mama" could come and go as she pleased. That meant we had a lot of dead mice brought into our basement. Thank goodness for two things: It's unfinished, and Mama is a VERY good — and complete — mouse eater. This other cat would hop down with Mama and snuggle with her and her babies. He was all black, and we knew the neighbor kids chased him. Accordingly, he was scared to death of humans. I had to win him over with turkey slices. We soon realized he was one of the cats from her first litter — one the neighbors had just let roam with no intent to feed or care for. Garrett named him Jet because he was jet fast and jet black.

Jet loved his mama, the tabby. And because I worried he might love her too much, I caught him and had him neutered. I did not want incestuous kittens.

Meanwhile, Mama the tabby stayed around. I asked the neighbors if they had any plans to spay her. They did, but there was no urgency. As much as I DID want Christmas kittens, I also didn't. Remember the trauma? Didn't want that. So, I told them I'd take her to the vet. That was the moment of truth for me. Should I put the neighbor's name as the owner, or should I put mine? Should I put her given name (Tater) or the one we'd started using (Lucy)? (I can't call a cat Tater, but the way.)

I put my name and then Lucy. Later that day when I brought a very drugged kitty home, I put her on my couch and went back to work.

That was that. I have no idea what the two of them do during the daytime, but they show up at night when we get home, come inside and sleep in little beds Garrett bought them. When he's out of town, I let Lucy sleep on my bed by my feet. The neighbors? I don't know what they think. They might not know any different than usual. Jet runs from anyone but me (and usually still me), and Lucy probably still visits them enough for them to know she's alive and around.

They have been our babies. Our text messages revolve around them ("Are the kitties in?" "Lucy's being really strange — eating [insert random food here]," etc.), our families ask about them and I'm handling more kitty litter than I ever thought possible. We love them.

And now I'll quit typing and give you something better to look at.

They sleep a lot. Obviously, they're cats.

Like I said, Jet is VERY black. Everything but his tongue, teeth and eyes are black, so when he licks his lips there's this crazy flash of pink and sometimes white. He's hard to show accurately in a photo because he's so dark. The lighting has to be perfect and his eyes usually have to be open to give some reference to the giant blob of black.

The tongue thing? He does it a lot.

They also like to wrestle. He's bigger than her by now, but she'll jump on top of him, put him in a headlock and then lick his face clean. She is still his mom.

Lucy is crazy. She will play with anything, eat anything and do anything.

She also REALLY likes newspaper. We found this out the day after Thanksgiving while going through all the Black Friday ads. Since then we'll give her a big piece of newspaper and it'll keep her busy for hours. But it usually ends up in little pieces around the house.

Call me a pathetic animal lover, but I've decided Lucy and Jet are enough of a Christmas present for me. I can go without a tree for a year.