I can't imagine depriving my kitty of her favorite thing all year, which is playing in the boxes and tissue paper when the tree goes up and down. Fortunately, she only likes to bat at the low-hanging kitty-safe ornaments and play with the spots of light on the floor.

Just be glad your kitties aren't like my Mom's, who take turns climbing up onto the furniture and leaping at the tree -- flying squirrel style -- trying to knock it over. I understand after the first successful attempt, she practically earned an engineering degree figuring out a way to stablize it.

Which only made the game more fun, I suppose :)