Reminds me of a classic net funny, although this one doesn’t have a holiday theme.
I bought my 100 year old house in the fall of 2009 and for Christmas I decided that my daughters should have a nice big dog, you know, for protection.
I went looking at the animal shelters for a large-breed puppy. I came up with Kota, a shepherd/lab mix. She loved me! She even tinkled on my shoe as a show of her devotion! I know now that wasn’t a good sign, but at the time I overlooked it. Such cute little brown paws on her nice glossy black little body…
She was already almost 4 months old and and not exactly petite. Timing was an issue because if you find a puppy you want at the shelter you can’t exactly wait around to pick it up, lest they kill it, so my boss offered to keep her for the week before Christmas. Cool.
Around here, when you get a dog from the shelter and it’s not spayed/neutered it has to go directly to the vet and have it’s plumbing adjusted. When I picked Kota up from the vet she was sedate and snuggly. Rather, she was sedated. I took her to my boss’s house and we kenneled her for the night. All was well! I mentally high fived myself all the way home, thinking I was pretty slick.
Boss called my cell phone in a panic three times during the night between 12:30 and 3:00. Kota was howling, she shat then rolled around in it and somehow flung it everywhere in the kitchen where boss’s little Bichon Frise was eating it. Boss’s daughter, who is autistic, was freaking out loudly. I blithely slept on, having forgotten to turn the ringer on my phone on after work. The next work day was just a tad uncomfortable.
So, I had to present the Christmas doggy a little early. The next evening I picked Kota up (presenting boss and her daughter with presents and many apologies), put her little Santa hat and jingle bell collar on her and trotted her in to my daughters. It was mutual love at first sight! I was back to thinking I was pretty slick. I’d just had a rough patch, right?
It quickly became apparent that I picked out the most hyperactive, destructive puppy at the pound. We had the regular potty issues and had to prevent puppy from eating the kitty, etc., but Kota also loved to chew cell phones, furniture, carpet, the wood floor, the Christmas presents, people, school books; you know, everything. She ate a bottle of skin lotion and chased it with one of those plastic gloves like the lunch lady wears, because it was full of cat vomit. Just endlessly entertaining. Then it snowed and school was cancelled for the last couple of days before Christmas break. My daughters were old enough to stay home while I went to work.
Now, my 100 year old house had a dead bolt lock on the front door, but the rest of them were the skeleton key kind of locks you have to have the key to open. They were probably installed when the house was built. There was a master key that was kept on the counter in the kitchen.
While I was at work Kota chased kitty under the 7 1/2’ artificial Christmas tree, knocking it over and wedging it between the front door and the staircase so tightly the girls couldn’t open the door. In the meantime, they had lost the skeleton key to the back door and so couldn’t open that one either. They called me in tears because they were trapped with a rampaging Kota and couldn’t even let her out to potty.
The tree was wrecked and a lot of the keepsake ornaments were broken and/or chewed/pissed on by the time I came home to rescue them, but it made for a memorable first Christmas at our new house.
One year I set up a real tree. I brought it in and put it in the holder for a day, for the branches to shake down. I’m in the kitchen and I can see the tree starting to shake, as the cat it climbing it. I chap my hands and holler at him to get out of there, just as he is moving out onto a branch. My noise startles him and he loses his grip, draping himself soft belly side down over the branch. All his limbs are flailing, grasping for traction and I have to reach into the prickly evergreen to get him out.
+1
And this one as well though by the British definition of “holiday” it qualifies :).
When Miss Maggie was a kitten, I put up my tree. Once. Silly me. Shoulda known better.
Back in the day she was **notorious **for climbing things - my 10 and 12 foot tall yuccas, the walls, and so on. There was a reason I used to call her ‘girl squirrel.’ Damn cat was nuts as a kitten - even more so than Widget ever was.
Fast forward to one morning during the Christmas season several years ago. I stagger downstairs in search of the coffeemaker, lurching past the tree on my way to the kitchen like an extra from The Walking Dead. I am NOT a morning person.
Next thing I know, the hitherto innocuous-looking tree suddenly explodes a small furry projectile that - god knows how - I manage to catch in both arms without even really knowing what it was. :eek: Her Ladyship had decided the tree was the best possible spot to say hi to mom first thing in the morning.
She was successful with her greeting. I didn’t need coffee after that. Dang near needed a change of underwear, however. After that I was careful to enter the kitchen through the other door, thereby I’m sure, seriously disappointing her. 
This is more New Years than Christmas but hey’s it’s all one Holiday season so here goes.
When I was but a wee lass I had a large Shepherd/lab mix named Morris. He was my shadow and as such was our families first “indoor all the time” dog. He had a dog house in the backyard but it was only used when he wanted to nap without me crawling all over him. The New Years I was 5 my parents were unable to secure a babysitter for my brother and myself so they decided to just issue an open invitation to their friends to drop by for a drink before heading off to their official NYE plans. Apparently it was a smashing success.
So much so that after a couple hours people started going out to their cars and retrieving the booze they were taking to their next event and bringing it back inside. At some point during the evening a large roasting pan was put to use as a punch bowl and for some ungodly reason it ended up on an endtable next to the couch. I slept the sleep of the innocent and knew nothing of this.
Early the next morning I awoke to the sound of Morris howling pitifully. I went into the living room, tripping over a few scattered bodies and found the dog, lying on the arm of the couch with his head IN the roasting pan and his tongue hanging out one side. Every minute or so he would half heartedly take a lick and every time there was the slightest noise he would howl and whimper. I ran and woke up my parents and we rescued him from his self induced torture. I think it we aspirin every few hours and lots of water but he definitely suffered with his hangover for a couple days.
Several years later at a family event there were a multitude of dogs attending and my aunt used an old roasting pan for a water dish for the dogs. We had to give Morris a bowl of his own as he refused to go near it.