TREE AND SHRUBSLeaf it to me

Christmas Trees – A Parrot’s View of a Christmas Icon

It was a good life he supposed. He had been raised here after all. He didn’t remember much of his life before here other than being in the same nest as his brothers and sisters, and the hourly feedings of course.

When he first got home of course his cage seemed so huge. For the first month inside of it he huddled in one small corner, the outreaches of it seeming so far away to his tiny body. Nowadays, that has changed a bit he thought as he heard the owners pull up to the house outside. He did appreciate his freedom immensely. Every since he got over shaking at the thought of enjoying all of the toys and gadgets regularly placed in his cage. It had taken him a few months, but today, he could come and go as he pleased in his cage. He was free to walk about the floor and they were even careful of where they walked when he was.

It was a good life. He enjoyed sitting on the couch, glaring and pinning on the TV randomly. What he really enjoyed was chewing the soft padded numbers on remote controls or phones, but that was something that seemed to upset the people in the house, so he didn’t get to do this as often as he liked.

Ollie Moves Out

Of all things! They had brought a tree into the house. And not just any tree. This tree was perfect. It had low, low branches he could hop up into from the floor. And it had high, high branches he could fly from if he wanted a short flight, or even fly too if he got a good running start from his cage ramp.

“Hah! Hey honey, come in here and check out where Ollie is,” said Jenny, the lady of the house.

“Hey that is pretty cool! I bet he does kind of enjoy the tree. He doesn’t understand Christmas yet, this is his first year with us!”

Ollie glared at them from his perch on roughly the uppermost branch that wasn’t the pointy peak itself. Every time he tried to reach that peak it would bend over and end up back on this branch he perched on now anyway. He supposed he wasn’t as small as a parrot as he always heard them exclaiming he was!

They let him sleep that first night once they had the Christmas tree up. But Jenny and her husband Tom weren’t huge fans of having trees just after Thanksgiving and leaving it up until New Years or beyond. They enjoyed their tidy home and although it was not too small, the tree did take up a good bit of their living space. So for Jenny and Tom they grew happy over the last few years of their marriage to put up their plastic tree the night before Christmas Eve, decorate it on Christmas Eve as their personal family tradition and then take it down Christmas Day after presents were opened to wrap up the holiday and prepare for the New Year!

Ollie Gets Furniture

Ollie woke up and stretched out his wings and ruffled his feathers real fast in his morning shiver. As he did something bright and huge and shiny caught his eye. He pinned instantly on the huge red hideous thing hanging not a foot from his perch. Way out on the very branch he slept on. What was this atrocity? He inched closer. As he got closer he seen the ‘Other’ bird!

He didn’t know where this bird came from but occasionally he showed up in dishes, mirrors or even reflections in his cage, but no matter what he did not care one whit for this bird and would hastily peck at his eyes to get rid of him. Normally if he did that a bit the people would come and take the Other bird away.

Well that is just what he planned to do this instant. He inched quicker towards the bright red shiny ball with the Other bird deep within it. As he got nearly within pecking distance, the branch made a swift turn towards the ground, the ball smoothly slid from the tree and broke into a thousand tiny pieces on the floor far below. Ollie, gave out a silent cheer. Take THAT Other bird!

Just as he was cheering he let out a loud squawk even he couldn’t believe had come from his beak. As he looked below him he seen ten, no twenty, by gosh maybe MORE! Big chunks of colorful plastic things, more of the dreaded shiny balls, why, he could see at least five of the Other bird looking at him from here!

It took him hours. Five to be exact. But he finally picked every single piece of ugly debris from that tree. Most of it lay around the bottom of the tree, some of it shattered, most had made the fall safely, but Ollie was immensely satisfied with himself. He finally shuffled back to the top of the tree and fluffed and preened and prepared for his next nap. He was slightly annoyed, as his food was still in his cage. But he had no intentions of leaving this tree. So he knew the people would eventually bring the food to him. He snuggled deep and dozed happily.

Ollie Gets Evicted

He woke up to a flurry of activity and noise in the room with him. Jenny was yelling and waving her arms around. Ollie took this as a sign she wanted him to dance with her as he often did so he began to bob his head to the non-existent music.

“Oh my gosh he is mocking me!” Jenny exclaimed. “Tom you get that crazy bird back to his cage this instant!”

Tom marched up and held out his finger. Ollie knew there was no reason to resist. He’d go, but he’d be back he promised his beloved tree home.

They put him in his cage and locked the door. A rarity. He knew he was grounded in the only sense a bird can really be. He used his beak to twist and turn at the lock for a while. When that didn’t work, he began his psychological attack on the people of the house. He would get back to his tree.

So for the next thirty six hours straight. Ollie let out a regular squawk every thirty seconds or so. He knew that eventually the people would get tired of this, as this was his signature “Let me out of the cage squawk,” but they seemed toughened towards him today as he watched them rip open packages he had seen them wrap just days ago. What was wrong with people anyway? Then they retired to bed. With the exception of a couple of hours he was sure he dozed off in, he began again just at the crack of dawn on the day after Christmas. Squaaaawwwwwwwwwwk!

After about three hours, Tom came storming into the room. With him he carried the now bare Christmas tree. They had never bothered to replace the ornaments, being much happier in each others company and secure enough in love to know that they didn’t need the tree to symbolize anything for them. But Tom also had an unimaginable love for his bird Ollie. Ollie was the same cantankerous spirit he was, and although it rubbed him wrong to see his kingly attitude reflected in a mere bird, he was hopelessly in love and full of respect and admiration for this little bird with a big bird attitude.

He scooted Ollie out of the way and perched him onto his shoulder. After that he grabbed the cage Ollie had lived the last 7 months of his life in and carried it full out to the garage. With Ollie watching he removed the food and water dishes, as well as the cuttle bones and even his sleeping rope!

From his shoulder perch which just happened to be eye level with his favorite spot on the tree he watched as Tom placed his comfy and nicely broken in sleeping rope from right under his favorite spot straight across to his second favorite branch, he then tied his feed and water dishes to the trunk of the tree on the lower branches. Ollie eyes pinned and glazed over in excitement. As Tom finished he placed Ollie back on his favorite branch, he leaned over to Ollie and only had one thing to say…

“You are lucky pal that you are not married. No woman would ever allow you to choose to live in a tree instead of a nice clean home!”

As Tom walked away Ollie cocked his head to the side and began to bob his head again to the imaginary music of happiness he could clearly hear playing in his head.

Send your Parrot to http://www.christmastreeforme.com to find his/her Christmas Tree

About the Author

Send your Parrot to http://www.christmastreeforme.com to find his/her Christmas Tree

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