Lorrie Shaw | Contributor

With the Christmas holiday looking ever closer, pets can be especially charming and cute. Outdoor playtime (despite the lack of snow), hiding underneath the tree, "helping out" with wrapping gifts; it's all in good fun, and we're excited to see what our reader's pets have been up to over the past few weeks!

With the theme "holiday pets" this week on our Friday Pet Photos feature, we invite you to email a photo of your critter looking their most festive (or getting into mischief) to ppsa2mi@gmail.com, any time during the week.

Please include the animal's name, age, and city or township of residence in your email, and photos should be 1200 pixels wide and in .jpg format.

We put the week's photos into a slideshow, publish and promote each Friday here in the Pets section.

Lorrie Shaw is lead pets blogger for AnnArbor.com. Follow her daily pet adventures on Twitter.