I am filing this report in spring, which should tell you something about the recovery period. Every December our household attempts to celebrate Christmas, and every December the holiday is reviewed, amended, and substantially rewritten by a four-pound compliance officer who was never invited to the planning meetings and has never missed one. What follows is the current settlement, as negotiated over several fiscal Decembers between me, my husband, and Nacho.
Tree policy
The tree, from Nacho's legal perspective, is an indoor forest installed for his personal jurisdiction. Year one he claimed it within the hour. The current settlement: ornaments below the eighteen-inch line are soft, unbreakable, and considered forfeit; tinsel is banned outright, not as a style ruling but as a safety one, since swallowed tinsel is a genuine veterinary emergency per the ASPCA's holiday guidance, which also has opinions about the water in the tree stand that I now share. The forest is inspected daily. The inspector has never once filed a favorable report.
The No Chocolate treaty
This is the one clause written in ink. December fills a house with exactly the inventory our danger list exists to keep away from a dog this size: chocolate at every altitude, cocktails at coffee-table height, a raisin presence I can only describe as saturating.
The treaty terms: nothing edible under the tree, wrapped or otherwise, because a chihuahua's nose reads gift wrap like a menu; counters clear; guests briefed; and the emergency numbers from the emergency file on the refrigerator, where they have thankfully only ever been decoration. One seasonal joke is permitted on this subject and I have used it: the dog is the only family member with a legally enforced diet, and the only one who has never cheated on it, for lack of thumbs.
Guest management
Holiday guests arrive in volume, at volume, wearing coats that must be investigated and perfumes that must be adjudicated. Nacho's position on crowds is the breed's position, documented in our calm-under-pressure guide: enthusiasm for the first four people, litigation thereafter. The settlement provides him a quiet room with his blanket cave, his water, and the good sweatshirt, to which he retires at his own discretion like a judge with a private chambers. Guests receive the standard orientation speech. Uncle Rob receives the extended version, annually, because Uncle Rob learns nothing, annually.
The sweater summit
Yes, there is a Christmas sweater. Yes, it has a reindeer on it. I would like the record to show that the garment is functional cold-weather equipment per the wardrobe regulations, that the reindeer was the only pattern in stock in size XXS, and that when he wears it to the window to supervise the snow, with the sleeves slightly long over his front paws, the assembled family makes a sound normally associated with fireworks finales. The dog tolerates all of it for the standard fee, paid in turkey, white meat, unseasoned, from the approved schedule in the safe list.
The three that actually send dogs to the vet
The amendments above are mostly comfort. These three are the ones emergency clinics see every December, and they are worth knowing before the guests arrive.
Chocolate and xylitol. Dark chocolate carries the most theobromine, and a four-pound dog needs very little of it. Xylitol, in sugar-free gum, mints, and some baking, is worse and faster. Both are a phone call the moment you suspect it, not the morning after.
Tinsel, ribbon, and string. Swallowed linear objects can saw through intestine and are one of the genuinely urgent small-dog emergencies. This is the real argument for the tree policy, and it beats the ornament argument comfortably.
Cold. A dog this size loses heat fast, and the trip from a warm house to a cold car to a relative's draughty hallway is longer than it looks. Our temperature guide covers the thresholds. Keep your veterinarian's holiday hours and the nearest emergency clinic's number somewhere you can find them at 9 p.m. on a Sunday, because that is when you will want them.
One more, less dramatic and far more common: the open front door. Christmas is the one day a year when the door stands open repeatedly, with arms full of coats and dishes and nobody watching the floor, and a four-pound dog is out and around the corner before the greeting has finished. A closed interior door, a baby gate, or ten minutes in her own room while guests arrive prevents the single worst possible December. Check that her microchip details are current while you are thinking about it; the registry is only as good as the phone number on it.
What survives of the original holiday
Less than half, honestly. The tinsel is gone, the chocolate lives in a cabinet with a childproof latch no child has ever defeated but I check anyway, the party guest list caps where Nacho's patience does, and the morning itself now runs on his schedule, which begins at seven with a patrol of the wrapping paper.
And here is the finding I file every spring: the amendments were all improvements. The holiday got smaller, quieter, warmer, and more carefully swept, which is to say it got better, which is to say the compliance officer was right about everything. He usually is. Merry Christmas from both of us, whenever this finds you.
