Christmas time and the great ornament hunting of Fred

So it's Christmas time folks. I found myself walking around Fry's last night singing along with the music they were piping into the store. I can't remember the song, but rest assured I sounded great. The software on the shelf told me so. Strangely enough I bought a book from Fry's. Weird I know, one would think you would buy something electronic. I really went there for a pillow pet thing but they only had bumble bees and I have been informed that those are just not acceptable.....I am to locate a lady bug pillow pet. I personally think the bumble bee one is cute.

Any ways, the point here is that it is Christmas time and I will be getting out Christmas decorations after work this evening. This means getting a christmas tree and decorating it. This also means that Fred cat will now have infintely more things to hunt. He loves ornaments. We discovered this last year when we started finding ornaments that had been deposited in front of the bedroom door. Then we started finding ornaments left in the water dish. Fred seems to be particularly fond of the little cloth gingerbread men my grandmother sent me last year. He carries them around until he finds a suitable place to put them. I found a stash of them in the hidey hold of the cat tree this spring. Sigh. I'm 1/2 tempted to not put any ornaments up on the tree. I know it's a matter of time before he starts climbing the dang thing and breaking the fragile ornaments. I need a cat deterrent for my tree, any ideas?

My Cats

These are my two cats:

Bucky (black) and Fred (grey). Bucky is going on 3 years old and we're not sure how old Fred is, if I had my guess I'd say close to 2.

Favorite people: eachother, Fred - me; Bucky - Jeff and my Dad

Favorite places to sleep include: on clean laundry, the bed, inside the dryer, on my chest, on top of the couch cusions, and on their cat tree.

Favorite toys include: cat nip mice, the dog, milk tabs, each other.

Favorite activites include: forced groomings (Bucky holds down Fred and grooms), sleeping, eating, hunting, meowing for no reason, getting stuck inside cabinets, dropping things in the water dish, and disrrupting anything that I am working on.

Fred recently caught and ate 1/2 of a pizza crust that had been tossed in the sink. He is becoming quite the proficient hunter. So far he has caught and destroyed a whole bag of egg noodles, a hotdog, a stryofoam cup of ramen, a twinkie, a couple of Christmas ornaments (they were sacrificed to the water dish for some reason), a small plastic horse - again deposited in the water dish, a couple Sonic peppermints and countless milk tabs. Fred is currently in the process of trying to take down my queen bed, but it has proven to be a difficult kill for him thus far. Not for lack of trying though!