Upcycle Old Christmas Trees as Cat-Nip for that Special Lion in Your Life

You have never been as excited for anything in your life as this cat is about his Christmas tree.

Of all the ways to recycle your old, pine-needle-shedding Christmas tree, this might be the most adorable. A British zoo is letting people donate their trees to the zoo’s lions, who find immense joy in batting the trees around like they’re just beanie bags. The trees, say zoo managers, are like “cat-nip” for the lions, but it looks like the lions have been using them as really effective scratching posts. In a video posted up by the Linton Zoo, what can only be described as a look of pure euphoria passes over the lion’s face as he rolls exuberantly in the needles. This heart-warming lion-tree encounter serves as a reminder that lions, fierce as though they may be, are just big old cats with really excessive hairdos.