Remember.

I smiled watching Abby under the Christmas tree tonight. She was just hanging out underneath, eating homemade chocolate chip cookies and reading stories. Echos of "Run, Run, Run, It's Fun, Fun, Fun" from the Yo Gabba Gabba Guitar and Booner announcing the Jazz game played in the background.

Abby tends to function in crazy mode during the month of December. She moves 100 miles a minute, and wants to see, feel, taste and touch everything around her. Her already bright eyes shine in that pure unadulterated excitement, and each time I see them I get to briefly remember my trips to Candy Cane Lane and Christmas Street. I feel 70 degree Christmas mornings filled with Cabbage Patch dolls and Madonna tapes.

Even though I am tempted to spike her milk with a hefty dose of Benadryl each morning, I am certain there will be a time in her near future when my tears will sting as I think of how she's grown beyond this stage.

A stage she gives me the opportunity to remember again, and I never want to see her lose.

Last night was spent decorating the tree, listening to Christmas music, sipping sparkling cider and eating pumpkin pie. It was spent with the sincere hope that I will give my kids the same types of sparkle filled memories that I have of this time of year. At least enough of them to help compensate for my fair share of non sparkly memories that I am destined to also relay to their adulthood.

Cheers to the beginning of the season.