In which Christmas is a mixed blessing

Christmas is not always kind to Mickey.

For starters, from the week before Christmas until sometime around New Year's, he completely loses access to the dining room, which is usually where he spends most of his out-of-cage time hanging out. This is because that is when we put up our Christmas tree, which is always a real tree. It's not just the possibility that he might ingest a few pine needles and get sick, it's the certainty that he would not only eat any cords and light strings attached to said tree, but because we have to move so many of his blockades to put up said tree, he would eat every cord in the room. This means that the dining room is off limits until the tree comes down and natural order is restored.

In past years, this has meant not much fun for Mickey, as not only had his exercise space been reduced, but his loving bunny-mum would sometimes be on the other side of the new blockade at her computer where she could not be reached--and that would annoy the bejeezus out of him. In my defense, I did always try to spend as much time with him as possible as he was running around, but sitting on the kitchen floor for extended periods of time causes my legs to go numb, and that is not fun--and he didn't appreciate me sitting on a chair in the kitchen, either.

This year, though, I decided to try something new; something that would hopefully keep both of us happy. I decided to allow him into our usually off-limits living room. I blockaded off all the trouble areas, put his dining-room litterbox in the living room, went into his kitchen and opened the cage door. He hopped out and immediately headed for the dining room as always, stopped at the gate, tugged on it for a bit, then turned around...and went back into his cage.

All within full sight of the now-wide open doorway to the living room.

I went into the living room, sat down and turned on the TV, thinking he'd come running in a short while. Five minutes later, he hadn't budged from the cage. I coaxed him out again; again, he went over to the gate, tugged on it and then returned to his cage. I tried to coax him out again, but he gave me a disdainful look and a Bunny Butt O'Snub. Apparently he was convinced I was playing some kind of game at his expense.

After almost a half-hour, I finally lost patience, scooped him out of the cage, sat him on the floor and nooged him with my foot until he went into the living room.

It was bunny bliss after that. I don't think I've seen that lazy bunneh run around so much in ages. There was much dancing and rejoicing and chewing of wrapping paper scraps (I was wrapping Christmas presents and watching TV while he did his thing). Fortunately, I remembered to bring my Flipcam into the living room:



For the most part, he was a good bunny, with the exception of two times when he leaped into my husband's leather recliner and I had to shoo him off. (I wish I had been able to get that on video, I haven't seen him leap that high in a long time.)

After a while, he finally tired himself out and decided to flop down and clean himself off:



Of course, getting Mickey out of the living room at the end of the night was even harder than getting him into the living room--and now that he's had access to the living room and will be having access for a while, I'm not sure how I'm going to handle things when the tree is gone and things are back to normal. I guess I'll have to wait and see how it goes.