So I wanted to help out, but it's not always easy when you're at someone else's house, even if that someone else is you're very own daughter.

I decided I'd help take down and put away the holiday decorations. It would be fun, I thought, to have C help me. We started with the ceramic Christmas tree I made ages ago that has little different colored plastic birds placed on it. C really got into it...she was most proficient and enjoyed the task until I started putting the tree itself into the box for storage. "No, MaDear!" she said, as I tried to explain to her that it was time for the decorations to go bye-bye. It then dawned on me that maybe I really, really didn't want her to associate *me* with the end of the fun and magic of Christmas so together we re-decorated the tree and played with the birds and sang "Jingle Bells" one more time.