As noted before, I have a love-hate relationship with the Annual Christmas Letter. So I rarely send them. But once before I had our cat Domino write my Christmas letter, and now our new cat, Vino le Bambino, wants equal time. He is not the regal type of cat who rules the household with hauty efficiency, he’s...well, you’ll see. So cat lovers keep reading, and the rest of you—see you in two weeks. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all!
Here's Vino's letter:
Bonjour y’all,
I’m jazzed to be able to write the Christmas letter this year. I know my predecessor Domino got to do it one year, so it’s only fair. But he was a sassy, laid-back cat who lorded over his resident slaves. Not me, I’m a fast and funny cat with a perky persona.
But ha, I have certain advantages over that other cat. I’m a French, bi-lingual, bi-continental cat (Domino never ventured out of France), which some say should give me an air of worldliness, a certain je ne sais quoi. However, even though I travel to the states sometimes, and I know English of course, “elegant feline” does not exactly describe me. In fact I live and breathe to PLAY. Eat? Sleep? Not if I can get up a game. I've been called “The Monster”, but I’m really not. I just hover over my Toy Drawer until someone opens it. I choose a toy and off I go, a fuzzy race car, mowing down anything in my path.
Now, back to Christmas, and to summing up our year. It was a crazy one. I was only a year old and just settling in to my chosen home in la campagne (they call me a “foster failure”), when boom, they cart me off to a new location in Beaune. Where I cannot hunt mice and careen around the garden like a maniac, like I did in the countryside.
We’re up on the 4th floor, zut alors! With no yard, just a balcone. It has a narrow ledge, but no problem for agile me until one day the first week I was standing on the ledge and a pigeon flew by, which kinda distracted me, and the next thing I know I‘m standing in the grass, four floors down. Oh la LA. Nothing damaged—but even though I’m quite the gymnast, I’ve avoided that ledge ever since. Now I am escorted down four flights of steps and through the lobby and out to the courtyard to PLAY.
But the best part of the year was when they gave me a new game: my very own Christmas tree! With branches to climb, ornaments that shimmer and dangle, ribbons to shred, and garlands to tangle. Best Christmas present ever!
So I hope y’all have a joyeux noel too, with lots of GAMES to play, plus a warm lap for sleeping, which is the other thing I like best.
Merry Christmas to all!
VINO LE BAMBINO