The Mahomes That Stole Christmas!

It’s becoming really hard to be a sports fan during the holidays. Christmas really needs to move from the weekend back to the weekday, how am I supposed to pay attention to the NFL, NBA, Christmas movies and family, all while trying to prepare a Hawaiian style honey baked ham lathered in pineapple juice and brown sugar for my family? By the way if you haven’t had a spiral ham drowning in a concoction of pineapple juice, brown sugar and honey, you haven’t lived. I thought about ordering a KFC family bucket the night before and reheating it for Christmas dinner, just so I had time to enjoy football. Am I supposed to ignore my family and all the holiday tradition just so I can watch Patrick Mahomes sob on the sidelines after losing to Maxx Crosby's tattoo coated body and the Las Vegas Raiders. I’m really caught in some first world problems over here. Christmas is supposed to be full of wonderment and cheer, when you walk down the stairs for the first time and see all the presents underneath a tree that has way to many lights on it next to a toasty warm fire, but instead of sweating from my mom having the house set at 85 degrees and the fireplace full of so much wood you could power a coal locomotive, I’m sweating profusely from every part of my body, hoping that The Giants can make a second half comeback with Tyrod Taylor at the helm, so that they can cover 12 points against the Eagles. I should only be sweating from the house being way too hot, not from football games.

The holidays are supposed to be for family not sports. But if you have family members that love to tell the same stories for the 32nd time this week, sports do make for a great excuse to go hide in the basement when your uncle who won’t shut up about the year, he took his 7th grade JV football team to the quarterfinals of a in county championship. I get it Gary you would have gone pro if it wasn’t for the blind side block that the kid wearing #36 from Farmington laid on you in the state championship back in 78. But hearing the same stories repeatedly is an important part of the joy of the holidays, pretending to listen and care about your family’s high school glory days is great practice for later in life when your significant other drones on about Carol down the street having a better recipe for tater-tot hotdish than she does. I really don’t care about Carol and her hot dish, but my wife will never know because of all the listening and pretending to care practice I had growing up during the holidays. I miss those days when there wasn’t a great match-up between the two first place teams in their respected conferences Baltimore and San Francisco on Christmas day night. I would much rather be squeezed around a TV with way too many of my extended family members watching Christmas Vacation for the 50th time while laughing at the same jokes because it’s tradition. But instead, I’m hiding in the freezing cold basement sucking down enough whiskey to keep my body temperature from freezing watching Sam Darnold try and make a comeback on a 20-inch black and white tv with dials on it to change the channel because I’m addicted to the NFL. I should really investigate my parents’ basement and find out where that draft was coming from, at one point I could feel my saliva freezing.  

You know who should really be angry about the NFL playing on Christmas besides Jesus, my mom, my wife, my cousin, Carol, and her hot dish, every holiday movie ever made, is the NBA. Christmas day used to be their day, they owned the TV viewing experience, from 11am till Midnight all you had was NBA basketball, well basketball and the 24-Hour marathon of A Christmas Story on TBS. Back in the day I could take part in all the holiday fun because I didn’t need to watch Lebron complain about his foot being off the line, on a fourth quarter game tying jumper vs the Wolves. NBA knows they can’t compete with any game the NFL throws out there. It could be Panthers, Cardinals and for some reason we would watch it over Lakers, Warriors. The NBA will be so happy when Christmas moves to a Tuesday next year and they will have their day back to themselves. Well, them and you know Jesus… That is unless the NFL decides to do a special Tuesday Night game between The Chiefs and Eagles… I wouldn’t put it past those greedy corporate overlords.

With New Years Eve (amateur drinking night) being on a Sunday this year that’s another holiday that I must dodge around just so I can watch football. Everyone seems to want to go out downtown and drink with a bunch of immature 21-year-olds all night long but that just sounds miserable to me. Maybe it’s because I’m getting old and don’t want to deal with screaming people in my ear all night long or maybe it’s because the Packers and Vikings play on Sunday Night and I love watching a shirtless Kirk Cousins do the SKOL chant on live TV. I would much rather watch a hammered Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper take tequila shots while talking to John Mayer in Japanese Cat Bar, then go anywhere near that downtown atmosphere. Not going to lie, the Cat Bar is my definition of Hell, that’s way too many cats for me. There was a time in my life when going out to bars and drinking until I threw up all over the cab driver sounded great, but that time has long passed. Staying at home cracking a nice pinot, maybe making some buffalo chicken dip if I’m feeling a bit naughty, sounds like such a better night than the regret that comes with bars on New Years. I would much rather have cheese regret than liquor regret. So, I guess I’m ok with football being on New Years Eve, especially during the Fantasy Football Championship, it makes for the best excuse ever to not hit the town.   

In conclusion, I know we can’t just move the days around, there are rules to this hole calendar thing dating back to when a Roman by the name Julius Caesar invented the Julian Calendar. He’s the one that was always pictured wearing that leaf crown, right? But from now let’s agree to never put Christmas near the weekend ever again, there is way too much going on for me to find the time to balance family and football. I know it’s a certain someone’s birthday but I’m sure if you told him our dilemma, he would understand completely and be just fine with his birthday always being on Wednesday. But New Years Eve can remain on Sunday till the end of time, that is the excuse everyone needs to not go out to the bars and deal with screaming first time bar drinkers. By the way, that seems like way too many people in Times Square at one time, seeing that makes me think I might be the only one who likes to stay home on New Years Eve. I don’t know about any of you but I’m looking forward to next year when I have the proper amount of time to make my Hawaiian Ham, watch our favorite Christmas movies, “listen” to the same stories, all without any distractions from Patrick Mahomes tears, while still completely ignoring the NBA all together.