Twas the day before the day before Christmas and all through the house the heater was blasting because it was freaking cold outside.
I was never good at rhyming.
Is it just me or the holidays always a disappointment now that I am an adult? As a student, even into college, you have a couple weeks off, with at least one coming prior to Christmas to allow you to get all festive.
You spend days getting into brawls with 67 year old women over the 25% Scarves rack.
You pick out and decorate a tree, hang household decoration and wrap presents.
You relax, reading or watching TV with a fire in the fireplace and the lights on the tree.
Your parents blast the worst possible Christmas music for weeks on end.
Each night features a bowl game pitting one school with a direction in its name against a school with a city in its name.
In short, your entire attention is focused on the pending holidays.
Now as a working adult, I force myself to squeeze some rushed shopping between the never-ending work requests that pile up as co-workers and clients try to cram a month’s worth of work into the 3 working days before the end of the year. Forget household decorations.
Today is a holiday for my company, yet I have a list of work to-dos longer than my 9-year old niece’s Christmas Wish List.
Where the holidays used to be my favorite time of the year, now it is something I look forward to all year that inevitably disappoints. It is sort of like the city of London. I idealize it in my mind and then once there, realize it is just really crowded and expensive.
With that bah-humbug, depressing opening, let’s hit the THH for the penultimate NFL weekend.
In honor of happier holidays this week, I am using one of the 3 best Christmas TV specials of my youth to guide who to cheer on in each game.
For the record those 3 are: (1) Twas the Night Before Christmas, (2) Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer and (3) Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas
This time of year, there is only one question to ask yourself: What would Emmet Otter do?
Shadow and Turner are not joining because Turner grew up Amish and is not familiar with the season’s most generous mammal while Shadow regretfully admitted he didn’t like Emmett growing up, which is nearly as shameful as once being a Raiders fan.
But I will forgive him. It is the least I can do this time of year. Because I should be thankful for what I have: family, friends and a washtub with no hole in it.
Giants @ Jets
Obviously Emmet would be cheering on the Giants. First, Emmet loathes greed in all forms. With Rex clearly eating all food in his vicinity and refusing to share while Mark Sanchez nails every hot woman who doesn’t have a souvenir ‘I got hit by Derek Jeter’ baseball, the Jets personify greed. The Giants on the other hand have Eli Manning who is all about the family. If any NFL player would enter a musical contest to try and earn money to buy his mom a Christmas present, it is clearly Eli.
Bucs @ Panthers
One of the songs that Emmet and his pals play is entitled Barbecue and includes the following lyrics:
And your very favorite thing to do
Is get a perty girl dancin’ to jug-band music
And a mess of mama’s barbecue
Barbecue lifts my spirit
I swear that it never fails
And the sauce mama makes just stays there forever
If you dare to get it under your nails
Well you maybe poor with a wolf at your door
But money isn’t everything
You still got your song and a river full of fun
And you’ll always have a song to sing
So get the frown off your face
We’re gonna replace it with a grin and a dream come true
With a perty girl dancin’ to jug-band music
And a mess of mama’s barbecue
Clearly, Emmet would be cheering for Carolina and their messy, sweet, tasty barbecue in this one.
Browns @ Ravens
Emmet, his mom and his mates lost the musical contest to a bunch of lizards, snakes and a bear wearing sunglasses. A group that can’t be trusted and would do anything to make money. Sort of like Art Modell turning his back on the people of Cleveland and moving to Baltimore for a promised new stadium. Emmet, of all beings, can relate to the poor people of Cleveland and would be a proud member of the Dawg Pound this weekend.
