Delighted squeals rang through my house while, with a final sssshhhhhhwoosh, the Christmas Tree slid through the front window and landed with a thump on the concrete walk outside the window.

It isn't often that you can shock my kids. Seeing their normally fairly well-behaved mother calmly slide open the window and begin vigorously stuffing their newly undecorated Christmas tree fat-end first through the window caused some wide-open eyes, sideways glances, and then monkey-hoots as they ran to help.

We shoved and shoved and then the tree was outside, and we were all standing in the suddenly wide-open space with our arms over our heads giggling and yelling "wooo!"

Then I vacuumed up the needles while the kids rushed outside to do a touchdown dance around the fallen tree making very heathen-sounding noises. They inspected the tree, and found one lone ornament that had missed my notice. It was quickly wrapped and placed in the box with its fellows. The boxes have been returned to their spots in the garage, and just like that, we're done with the holiday season.