"A little to the left," Kalel waved her hand inward to flag Anthony's movement.
Anthony shifted the bare Christmas tree in the direction Kalel indicated, standing back once it was in place so she could give it her own appraisal. She tapped her chin and pursed her lips thoughtfully before nodding her approval. The room was filled with boxes containing ornaments and lights and various decorations, which created a playground for Pip. Buki had already been there, seen this for the most part so she sat back and lazily eyed the big kitten.
"Pip is eating the garland," Anthony observed.
"Pip!" Kalel stomped forward and put on her best stern face, lifting the cat away from his trouble making and whirling him around to face her. "Stop eating Christmas!" She dropped him on the ground and sent him off with a little pat to his rump.
A laugh escaped Anthony, "Buki's just sitting there like 'ha ha, bitch. I knew you was gonna get in trouble.'"
"Buki's a good girl who knows the rules of Christmas. Isn't that right, Buk?" She leaned down to give Buki a few scratches before popping up and skittering to her fiancé's side. "Babe, babe. We gotta start with the lights. Get the lights! Hurry, hurry."
"Alright, alright..."
Kalel ushered him forward and trailed close behind so she could assist. Together, they pulled open the box and frowned at the state of the cord. Anthony lifted out the tangled mess, looking down at it and then back up at her.
He shook his head gravely. "How does this even happen? Are cords having some massive orgy after Christmas or something?"
"Well what else do they have to do with their time - being locked up in a box for eleven months and all?" she reached out to take one end of the mess, sinking down onto the floor and beginning to pick it apart. When Anthony remained standing, she shot him a glance and held it for a few seconds before he obeyed her silent command and sank down to do the same.
"And so we spend the rest of our day detangling Christmas lights. I thought we were gonna try and get a vlog in here somewhere."
"Please. The viewers only want to see the finished product. This part would definitely be boring."
"Not if we tied Buki and Pip to the tree and said Merry Catmas, everyone."
"Yeah, I'd leave that entirely up to you. You can wrangle them and see how much skin you have left at the end of it..." Kalel successfully detangled a quarter of her end of the line, scooting up so she had more access to the rest.
They worked together, hunched over like monkeys picking the lice from other monkeys. Even though they had to shoo Pip away a few times when he wanted to offer his 'help,' in the end, they successfully had a string of lights ready to be hung. Anthony took one section while Kalel secured the other to make sure no unintentional light orgies happened on the way, and they began to wrap the tree. Once finished, Kalel stood back to make any final adjustments before they deemed it ready for the next step - the actual decorating. She clapped her hands together, prancing toward the boxes.
"Yaaay, the fun part~"
"Yaaay," Anthony echoed with a hundred times less enthusiasm.
Kalel scrunched her nose at his response, "Don't mock my fun, Anthoneezer Scrooge."
"Anthoneezer Splooge?" He joked, but then smiled. "I'm not. I swear. As long as you're having fun, I'm having fun."
"That's the blanket boyfriend response. You're just lucky I'll let you off the hook," as she made her statement, she brought one of the little glitterized Christmas ornaments up and into his hand by the hook. "See what I did there."
He chuckled, "I see. And you can only get away with it because you're so darn cute." He leaned forward, stealing a quick peck before finding a random place for the ornament.
Together, they finished the tree with Kalel's perfectionist designer mind causing her to move several things several times before she was satisfied with the outcome. The result? An amazing looking tree that took over four hours to decorate. She smiled, grabbing her phone so she could take a picture of the end results for her blog. Then she snatched up Anthony's hand so they could get a selfie in front of it for their instagram. Once the picfest was done, she noticed Pip by the tree - batting at one of the low hanging ornaments.
"No!" she said firmly, plucking the cat up and moving him away.
Anthony took one of Pip's favorite toys, waving it around to get his attention before tossing it off further into the apartment. The kitten chased after it eagerly. "There. That problem's taken care of."
"We are so gonna have our hands full with him," Kalel placed her hand beneath her bangs, shaking her head. "Anyway, after all that work, I'm starving..." she declared, heading toward the kitchen.
"Me too," Anthony agreed, following her.
She rummaged around the closet, finding a pack of cookies and beginning to nibble on them, "We should seriously go out and get some food. I think we earned dinner being cooked by someone else."
He sidled closer, plucking up a cookie and popping it in his mouth, "Agreed. Or we could just sit here and eat cookies for dinner. I'm totally okay with that."
"You sound like a five year old," she laughed, pulling out another cookie and nibbling it down. "Oh!" She polished off the treat, dusting the crumbs from her hands before pulling out her phone. "We should vlog and show off our hard work."
"Everyone will be so jealous of our amazing tree," he picked a bit of food mush from his teeth, receiving an unamused look from Kalel. "Whaat?"
"Nice, babe. Real sexy," came her sarcastic response before she looked at the already recording camera. "Heeeey, guys!"
Anthony hovered over her shoulder with a wave, "Sup?"
"So as always, I'm going to apologize on the lack of vlogs on our part. Especially with the holidays going on, things are cu-raaa-zy. But we're slowly making some progress. We decorated our tree today, yaaaay!"
"And stopped the lights from having orgies," Anthony added.
"And stopped the lights from having orgies," Kalel repeated in agreement before looking back at the camera. "No. Seriously, you should've seen the crazy kama sutra positions these things twisted themselves in. Way worse than when me and Anthony try yoga. I have no idea how it always happens because every year when we take down the tree, I make sure to take the cord and wrap it up all nice, neat, and untangled."
"I think it's one of those mysteries of life. The same way you always have one sock that goes missing," Anthony snatched up another cookie and gave no cares that he was chowing down on camera.
"Look at Anthony over there being a fatass." She turned the camera onto him completely.
He went over to get more, twerking all the way which made her start laughing uncontrollably as she reached out to give him a slap on his backside. Her laughs stopped abruptly, however, when there was a very loud crash from the other room. Both Anthony and Kalel exchanged stunned looks before rushing out of the kitchen in time to see Pip darting away from the scene of the crime and their tree completely toppled over - lights blinking, ornaments broken, and Buki uncertainly surveying the aftermath.
"Oh noooo!" Kalel exclaimed.
Anthony headed over, careful to step over the broken glass just so he could right the tree again, "Well, we wondered how Pip would react to Christmas."
"All that hard work. All the ornaments," Kalel sounded very close to crying, stepping forward to lift the remnants of a particularly fond decoration. "Babe. Baabe, look! It's the one you got me when we first started dating. Sir Pip, you are in so much trouble!"
Anthony leaned over to plant a kiss on her forehead, "So we make new memories. New ornaments. And at least it makes a funny video, right?"
Realizing she still had the phone in her hand, Kalel brought it up to record the damage, "You guys, look what Pip did to our tree. I don't even know what we're gonna do - see what can be saved, I guess, and what we need to replace. Do you know how long it took to get everything nice and perfect? Four hours. Four hours."
"And Pip destroyed it all in four seconds," Anthony tried to keep the amusement out of his voice, but he didn't do a very good job.
Kalel released a sigh, swinging the camera around to face herself so she could shake her head in exasperation. Then it was back on Anthony.
"But this means more vlog time opportunities. They can go shopping with us for ornaments. Pip is giving back to the fans."
"I'm ready to give him to the fans," she huffed, but in the end she couldn't be all that angry. He was a cat, after all. The tree was like a glorious beacon of all things shiny, and if she was a cat, she'd want in on that action. "But I guess we're gonna head out and start that shopping now. After all that hard work, we were gonna get dinner anyway. Now we get dinner and more hard work." She fake cried.
"See, we should've gone with my idea of tying the cats to the tree."
"Maybe that's what we'll do. Pip definitely deserves to be hanging up there by his balls," Kalel flipped the camera around and turned it off before setting it to the side. Her hand slipped up beneath her bangs to hold them away from her eyes as she looked over the mess. "I guess I better get this cleaned up. Buki, go yell at your little brother for me."
"Well, we joked about it being Catmas. So, Merry Cat Mess, Kalel," Anthony stepped forward, taking her by the hands and planting a comforting kiss on her lips.
She leaned into it, giving in to his soothing. Merry Cat Mess indeed.