Christmastime is Here

December 1 starts a month long celebration of the greatest time of the year.  Second place is a distant second.  You can talk about the end of March with March Madness and the beginning of the MLB season, or the beginning of Fall when it starts to get cool outside and the leaves are turning colors and college football is right in the meat of its season, but neither of these times come close to what we are beginning now. 
Find some way to slow it down a little because it will be over before you know it.
To ensure you are enjoying the season
1-Christmas playlist should include Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Dean Martin, Andy Williams, and of course The Boss.
2-Make sure you are watching the staples.  Charlie Brown, The Grinch, Christmas Vacation, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Its A Wonderful Life, Scrooged
3-Christmas Tree-Preferably live, but fake is better than nothing.
4-Pull out some old nostalgia that will bring a tear to your eye on a bad day.
5-Christmas Cookies-eat them, bake them, or both
6-Buy and Drink Hot Chocolate-with or without Bailey's.  Always with marshmellow cream


Christmas Present Hall of Fame (in no particular order)
Starting Lineup Talking Baseball- 

My grandparents gave this to me (probably in 1988 or 1989) on Christmas Eve.  If I'm not mistaken the voice was Vin Scully.  Or maybe I just wanted it to be Vin Scully.  By hitting a couple buttons in a timely fashion, in response to little red lights liting up, you could hit a homerun with Babe Ruth or Ted Williams or strike out Don Mattingly with Walter Johnson.  I was 10 and I couldn't be pryed away from this toy.  I didn't touch any of my gifts received on Christmas Day.

Nintendo

Gary was the first one to have one of these and I just played it a little.  We had a cheap atari that they didn't even make games for anymore, but that was more than satisfying at the time.  When we got that Nintendo everything else in life was blacked out.  There was no "outside", there was no "basketball", there was no leaving the basement.  My thumbs blistered out in the early morning hours of December 26 and I was unfortunately on the DL for a day or two, which was sheer torture.  Someone recently sent me an article where this question was asked "do over 50% of your childhood memories involve Nintendo?"  The answer is a resounding "YES".  (Mario Brothers 1, 2 and 3, RBI Baseball, Legend of Zelda, Metroid)

Doug Flutie Franklin Football

My Grandma June got this for me; back when I couldn't decide if I wanted to be an NFL quarterback, NFL kicker, MLB SS or MLB Pitcher.  As corny as it sounds I still remember the smell of the leather and I embarassingly slept with that ball for months. 
*I believe the ball was lost in 1995 while Mattingly and I drove around throwing footballs at some kids in my neighborhood. Funny and kind of depressing.

Have a good Christmas.