The party's over

From the far corner of the sofa, from under the layers of one of mum's massive crochet blankets, in between couging fits, I gave the croaky instructions to the kids to dismantle Christmas, bit by bit. Always a wee bit of a sad task, and the only time the house feels minimalist for all of 5 minutes, before the irrepressible clutter starts to instantly regroup and loiter in every nook and cranie, surface and space, and inexplicably become immediately surrounded by dust bunnies. That is until next December, when it's masked by the Christmas extravaganza all over again. We had our best tree ever this year, so much so, it's now decorating the back garden until further notice. And today was that day that everybody hates, the night before going back to school and work, or so I thought.....