I know I mentioned in a previous column that Thanksgiving is my favorite federal holiday. But, that doesn’t mean I’m a Grinch.
It’s just that all the enjoyment I’ve gotten out of Christmas, especially as I got older, has come from playing sports. For my family, Thanksgiving is the time when we all try to get together in one place and hang out with extended family members all day. Christmas doesn’t really fly under the radar, but we just like to open up our presents and go about our day until it’s time for supper. This has worked out pretty well for me, because I’ve almost always lived in neighborhoods with a lot of kids around my age.
Growing up in Buffalo, N.Y., there was often way too much snow and ice on the ground to play in the yard, so that limited us to playing hockey. I lived across the street from one of my best friends, whose house had a big pond right in the backyard that froze over every year, and that served as a makeshift rink. A neighbor once erected a couple of spotlights, so we could play at night, and just thinking about that makes me want to give up a year’s worth of Christmas presents just to play pond hockey right now.
As a side note: I don’t like to do New Year’s resolutions. But, if I had to make one for 2014, it would be to work on my hockey game again.
When I moved in 2004 to Florida, hockey went out the window for a long time. I didn’t live close enough to Brandon to play there often, so I’d probably look pretty rusty on the ice today. Our group of seven neighborhood kids instead just went with whatever fad was in at the time.
We took up skateboarding one year, not knowing how difficult it actually was, on my first Christmas in the state — everyone got a board at the same time. Because someone got a mini-rail, and my cousin got a couple of small ramps, we all played a game of HORSE as soon as we had everything set up. It was painful, yet fun.
Once the skateboarding fad died down, we took up football in the yard with other kids from around the neighborhood. My favorite game was played on a Christmas when two of the kids got new footballs, and something possessed me to line up at running back for the first time in my life. I stiff-armed two kids, both bigger than me, on one draw play and scored a touchdown. I felt like Marshawn Lynch. And, anyone who knows me — or has seen me in person — immediately knows why football never really worked out for me when I was growing up.
When we stopped playing football, someone got a basketball hoop. We played a lot of 2-on-2 games, but there was one Christmas, when my cousin and I teamed up and ran the tables on everybody all night. We had a great scheme. He was the fastest kid in the neighborhood, so he could get open at the drop of a hat. All I had to do was draw one defender next to the other and set a screen. They’d bump into each other, my cousin would cut to the basket, and we’d get a bucket — all within about 15 seconds. If that didn’t work, he could create a shot for himself off of the dribble, and I just had to be ready to rebound. We should have gambled on ourselves that day.
Although Christmas will have passed by the time you read this, I hope you will have made some great memories outside the house, tossing the pigskin around the yard or playing some pickup games in your favorite sport with friends and family.