Upside Down Christmas Tree Holiday Hacks for Human Pet Parents
Made you look!
If this upside-down Christmas tree made you do a double take, you’re not alone.
“Everyone is just so confused [when they see it for the first time], Gina Glocksen-Ruzicka, the owner of an upside-down tree, tells TODAY.com. “They always ask, ‘how’s it going?’ and if there is some kind of symbolism behind it that maybe we don’t believe in Christmas.”
For the record, the Glocksen-Ruzicka family has nothing at all against Christmas. Their upside-down tree is one of two Christmas trees in their home in Oswego, Illinois. The other is a traditional tree.
The upside-down tree has been part of the family for 16 years. Glocksen-Ruzicka says she was window shopping with her then-boyfriend, now husband, in Wisconsin when they discovered the unusual tree. The couple ended up buying the tree from American Sale. Although the company doesn’t currently have one on its website, an upside-down search shows trees available at Wayfair and Amazon.
“We thought it might be the perfect solution for our cats,” she says. The couple had four at the time, and Glocksen-Ruzicka said the cats were prone to mischief around the tree and repeatedly peed on the tree skirt.
The inverted tree solved the problem. “The skirt is on top and the gifts are on top. The cats just walked right past, she says.
Now that the couple have two children – and three cats – the upside-down tree is what the children like to decorate the most. Glocksen-Ruzicka says that’s because, on an upside-down tree, the ornaments are easier to see. “They stand out more,” she tells TODAY.com.
And for families with small children, it’s a way to keep delicate ornaments out of little hands.
The trees have also become popular with retailers as a way to save floor space while displaying ornaments.
But for the Glocksen-Ruzicka family, the tree is just something “fun and unique”. Glocksen-Ruzicka notes that their family itself is unique, as both she and her husband are musicians. Before she was married, Gina Glocksen was a contestant on “American Idol”.
The tree is their “music tree” – it has a ribbon of music notes as decoration and sits in the family’s music room. “We’ll sit in the room and have a few drinks and look at the tree,” she says. “It’s beautiful.”
For families who want to keep their tree, pets and kids intact and safe this holiday season, but aren’t interested in an upside-down tree, Christmas expert and president of Chicago-based Ulta-Lit Tree Company John DeCosmo suggests using wider tree stands for real trees to make them more stable. For artificial trees, DeCosmo suggests screwing them into a piece of plywood for stability.
