Peter, Miranda, and Helen greet us at the East Visitor Entrance, where a steward takes our coats and bags up to the residence. Peter greets Carly with a hug and a peck on the cheek. I wonder if she told him about the chat she had with Donna this morning. Not that he ever does much more than that in front of all of us.

Anyway, it's sweet. He takes her hand as Helen begins to give us a tour of the White House Christmas display. Donna and I have already seen it, of course. But this is the first time for Carly and Lulu. I love how bright and shining their eyes are. Sometimes I forget to be in awe of this place.

"Our theme this year is Shine, Give, Share" Helen intones "It's a tribute to our troops, veterans, and their families. Volunteers from 36 states plus the District of Columbia worked for days to get everything ready."

She leads us into the Blue Room– "here we have the official White House Christmas tree—a breathtaking 18-foot-6-inch balsam fir from Neshkoro, Wisconsin—which honors our men and women in uniform and features holiday cards created by military children."

"Wow!" Carly exclaims, and it seems to snap Helen out of her official tour mode.

"I know, it's pretty incredible isn't it?" She responds, sounding more like herself. "All the ornaments are military themed, see, there are medals, badges and patches from all the military branches. And volunteers made pine cone frames to display historic military photos."

"Look!" Miranda urges Carly, "I made that one." She points to a picture of Matt in uniform, holding Miranda when she was about 3 years old.

"That's great." Carly notes. "Did you make any Peter?"

"Yeah." He blushes a little, then directs her to a ribboned frame with a picture of Eisenhower. "Aunt Donna had us helping out for a photo opportunity."

Donna's cheeks turn a little pink at that. While Miranda still seems to enjoy the limelight, Peter does not. Especially now that he's been repeatedly warned about being photographed with Carly. The teen magazines are very interested in the 16 year old First Son. The tension between Donna's job as Mrs. Santos' Chief of Staff and her friendship and concern for Helen and her family is no little cause of stress.

"Well, I like it." Carly insists, wrapping her arms around him. Her reaction draws a little smile from him, and it feels like all will be well.

"Let's go see the Gingerbread White House." Helen suggests.

"Oh yes! I've been looking forward to seeing this year's." Carly chimes in. "Did you know that this tradition has been going on since 1968?"

Carly sounds so much like Donna right now, Helen and I exchanged amused smirks. There must be a trivia gene in the Moss family DNA. And these two seem to especially like White House factoids, even after all these years of seeing it up close and personal.

"And it's always displayed in the State Dining Room on a mahogany console table in front of the gilded pier mirror so that the back of the gingerbread house can be viewed in the reflection."

"Here it is." Helen announces. "It's 400 pounds, 41 inches wide and 22 inches deep. The gingerbread is covered in White Chocolate, the house has working lights, four fully furnished rooms and a replica of the Kitchen Garden."

"It's amazing!" Carly gushes, standing over it, Lulu copies Carly's stance, "oohing" and "aahing" and nodding along as her cousin points out each detail. I'm amazed at how attentive she is, especially when she stays behind as Carly moves on with Donna and the rest of them.

Donna looks back but I motion for her to go ahead without us. This is one of the things that Lulu's school really encourages, allowing children all the time they need to fully examine something before forcing them to move on to something else. So I just stand back against the well and let her look.

Eventually she looks back at me. "This is a cookie?"

"Well, yeah, I guess you could say it's a cookie. It's made from gingerbread."

Without another word, Lulu reaches her little hand right through a window and snatches a little chair from the room and bites it in half. But after just a couple chews she spits it out into her hand.

"That is NOT a cookie!"

"Well it's not really meant to be eaten, sweetie."

I'm having a hard time not laughing at her disgruntled look. She is so my daughter. Which is why I decide to let her in on a little secret.. I've eaten a piece off of every Gingerbread White House for the last 14 years. One of the greatest things about working practically alone over the holidays is that I've never been caught.

"Here's what you do. You need to take something from the back, where it's not as noticeable, and you need to take something that doesn't go stale."

"See, here, this little wreath over the window?" I show her the side of the mansion that has three windows, two of which have wreaths over them. " It's just made of sugar."

I pry one off and hand it to her, but she still looks skeptical. "Trust me. I had one last week." I pry another one off and pop it in my mouth.

Lulu grins at me and puts hers in her mouth too. She continues smiling as the confectionery melts in her mouth. We stand there enjoying the sweetness and a few minutes of father/daughter bonding. When it's gone I put my finger over my lips, in the universal sign asking for secrecy, then I take her hand and we skip off to join the others.

When we catch up to Donna, I wonder if Lulu will tell on us. It's really not that big of a deal if she does. The Gingerbread House will be discarded within a day or two anyway, and all the major holiday events are over. And it's not like Donna will be surprised. While she doesn't know that I've done this every year, she has been a co-conspirator more than once.

But Lulu doesn't say anything. She just holds my hand as we admire the rest of the Christmas trees.