Do they know it ' s Christmas time at all?

Last night I was on my way home from the garden center (no, I'm not insane enough to go to the mall the week before Christmas - that's why the Internets and encrypted secure online transactions were invented), and stopped at the best pet supply store in San Francisco to pick up our organic, holistic equivalent of fast food, the raw ground grass finished bison with organic veggies made by Primal.



So, I'm in there and I think, oh wow, I forgot to buy a Christmas present for my nephews' cats, Miss Muffy and Miss Tuffy. I buy them something every year, and they give lovely gifts to my dogs, so it's not really optional (and yes, I understand that this mentality is the genesis of Gina's anti-gift manifesto, but I have the floor now).



I idly glanced at an adorable olive-and=cream cat bed that my sister-in-law would have loved, but the $50 price tag was a little steep. That'll buy a lot of free-range junk food.



I picked up a pretty white stocking with little mice appliquéd on it, and filled it with cat toys and treats. I then asked if they had any of the giant "Nature's Animals" dog biscuits, which I always buy for my own giant dogs for Christmas morning, only to be told no, they were sold out, and wouldn't have more before the holiday.



My face fell, and the sales clerk looked sympathetic and suggested some alternatives, but I had my heart set on those particular biscuits. Because, you know, my dogs know it's Christmas and they'd be disappointed if I didn't stick with tradition.



And there, dear readers, is the entire insane, demented, irrational thing in one tidy little package: The delusion that my dogs know it's Christmas, or have any idea at all what that might mean.



Let's face it. They're dogs. They wake up every single morning filled with the joyous anticipation that modern children mostly experience only on Dec. 25 at approximately 5 am. One of the things I love best about living with dogs is watching them wake up in the morning, seeing consciousness return to their eyes, their faces light up, and their tails start to thump. You can almost hear them thinking, "Oh! It's today! And you! Yay!"



So I probably could skip the special, must-have-those-exact-ones cookies, or get them a week later, and just make my dogs some festive Christmas morning hardboiled eggs, and they'd be just as happy. They're dogs. That's what they do.



Miss Muffy and Miss Tuffy really are a different story. It takes a lot more to impress cats than dogs, but in my experience, which is vast, they will unbend sufficiently by dinnertime to roll in the catnip, chase Christmas bows, and shred the discarded wrapping paper, before falling asleep on someone's brand new, neatly folded red cashmere sweater.



They're cats. That's what they do.



And buying them presents? That's what I do. Happy Holidays!

Comments

[KathyF]

One year we'd wrapped presents for Bailey and put them under the tree, with stern warnings that she had to wait for Christmas. Everything was fine, until a few days before Christmas when my nieces were visiting. We let them open their presents, and we opened the ones from them.



As paper was flying, I looked over at Bailey. She'd taken one of her gifts from under the tree and was opening it.



She knew it was time to open presents, even if she didn't have the date exactly right.



So I believe with all my heart that dogs know it's Christmas.