I hope you enjoyed a fantastic holiday season, but it seems like once they're over they're quickly pushed out of the way in favor of New Year's planning or end-of-year recollections.

To keep the spirit alive just a little while longer, I wanted to share the best present my wife and I received.

It was for my wife, from my parents, but it was all about me.

In doing some housecleaning, which led to the rediscovery of my old toys, my parents also found a booklet I put together as an 8-year-old. It was some kind of class assignment called "This is me..." where I wrote about, well, me.

We all had tears in our eyes reading this aloud. I'm essentially the same person at 32 as I was at 8, which for me is a good thing. Or, I was an 8-year-old with an abnormally large ego.

Anyway, some highlights:

• Under the "Some other special characteristics about me" section I wrote "I'm awesome."
• Presents I would like to get: R.B.I Baseball II, a color TV, a VCR and a "Lambergini."
• I had to fill in four balloons with my favorite colors, one of which was indeed, black.
• "Things that bug me" were seven lady bugs I had to fill in, and I'm sure the teacher thought I'd put "homework" or "chores" in there. Nope. They were all people, including my sister. Remember, eight years old.

There were these gems:

My strengths were "My brain, my heart, my writing talent" and my "baseball talent."

My only weakness? "My fear."

Yup. Whatever that means at eight.

Then, under "Goals for my life" my first entry was to "Be a writer."

We laughed some more at that, but marveled at it as well - how many people know their life's dream at eight? And then who can say they carried it through years of school?  I feel lucky and blessed every holiday season, but this helped reinforce how truly fortunate I am to be living a childhood dream.

Before I moved to Milwaukee, I was a frequent visitor and found myself getting lost in various neighborhoods looking for restaurants or the homes of friends.

One of the first unique parts of the city I came across was the house on Humboldt Boulevard that has a bunch of cars half buried in the front lawn.

This fascinated me, and even now I slow down to take a look at it. I'm not sure what I'm looking for – maybe some kind of "Revenge of the Fallen" thing might happen that day – but I do it nonetheless.

Then I realized – people in Milwaukee love having stuff in their yards. And not just usual yard stuff, like those glass globes or gnomes – but weird stuff.

Like a steel giraffe in a wooded, unkempt backyard. Or a ship's anchor. I mean, why not?

Know of any other weird yard stuff in Milwaukee? Sure you do. It seems we all love it.

Technically, we live history every day. There has never been another day like the one we're currently in. But, doing what we do on some random Thursday is kind of mundane. There's no excitement, no juice.

Today is different, though. It's Dec. 12, 2012. It's an historic date better known as 12-12-12, which is better known as Aaron Rodgers Day here in Wisconsin.

What better way to celebrate the last consecutive date in our lifetimes? Yes, all of our lifetimes – you can't really assume that any child born today will live to 100, not with all this stuff going on.

So let's celebrate Aaron Rodgers Day. The MVP. The Champ. The Discount Double Check. The sensitive one. The greatest Wisconsinite not born or permanently living in Wisconsin of all time. Awesome.

If you celebrate it the right way, be sure to get in touch with the Style Network and maybe you can get yourself on TV for a Cheesehead-centric reality show.

Of course, if you feel the world will end in nine days, then this is all moot anyway.

A couple of weeks ago, my dad texted to tell me the mission I put in front of him was accomplished: The Toys were back.

The Toys were my pride and joy as a little guy – boxes of He-Man, Thundercats, G.I. Joe and assorted other action figures. My folks definitely got their money's worth. I beat the snot out of those things.

Once, I decided that when a G.I. Joe died in battle due to a missile through the stomach, he should have a hole in his stomach. So, I got myself into dad's tool box, found a drill, and proceeded to – you guessed it – put a hole in his stomach.

That served me well enough in that particular battle, but then it hit me – that hole wasn't going away. So unfortunately, that particular G.I. Joe always had to die in a fashion that called for a hole in the stomach.

Those were the days.

After I aged out of The Toys, my parents did the right thing – they saved them. Put 'em in boxes or garbage bags and tossed 'em up in the garage rafters. Who knows when they'd see the light of day again.

That day came recently, when I asked if my dad could find them. He did, and boy was it a wallop from the past when I opened those things. I was a little sad I couldn't remember all the names of the figures, but I knew the faces.

I couldn't wipe the smile off my face for the better part of an hour as I dug through them all.

After throwing away some assorted arms, legs and cracked guns and ships, I packed the rest in a plastic tub and brought them up to Milwaukee. Once home, I put them in the sink for a good scrub - they've been in those rafters for the better part of two decades, after all.

Unfortunately, some didn't make it through the wash cycle.

That led to this discussion with my dad.

Indeed they did.

Now they are en route to a new house where they can be enjoyed by all my nieces and nephews who, for the next few years, will come to love and appreciate all of these toys as I once did.

My 4-year-old nephew already loves He-Man (yes, I own all the…