A celebration in which families come together to eat very unhealthy food & drink beer in plastic cups bearing their team’s logo. It is a holiday spent yelling-but not at one another, but at a television. The Alabama/Auburn game. Both colleges are in Alabama. Everyone has to like one or the other. I married an Alabama man & I have Alabama kids.

I cannot watch much of any football game. I haven’t watched football since high school. Montpelier High School- I went to every game I could because I knew everyone on the team. I was the girlfriend of one, a friend to some, but I knew all of them. My senior year, Montpelier High School became State Champions. A small high school, in the small state of Vermont.
When our team won the game & we fans poured onto the field looking for anyone to hug & celebrate with…I watched my high school boyfriend run away from the crowd, he ran, full tilt, into his father’s arms & he threw his legs around his father’s waist. The sight of it almost brought me to my knees.
It was more then just a game, more then a win. It was an end. Most of those boys had been together since kindergarten. It was their last football game as a team. Those boys would graduate & when they saw one another again, they would be a part of something much bigger then themselves.
That game was the last time I liked watching football. Every game, there after, was just men in gear, smashing each other.

I’d already seen the best football game of my life. Go Solons.

For my children & my husband, I will say, “Roll Tide”. Because I’ve become a part of something much bigger then myself.

Happy Holidays…Thanksgiving, Chanukah, Alabama/Auburn game & Christmas & New Years

Post Script…glad I didn’t attend the family party to watch the game.  Everyone came home very upset & settled in their rooms to suffer through their loss.  Alabama lost to Auburn.  I’m very shocked to hear it.  Wow.