Christmas

No matter how old you get the joy of Christmas is always present. Each year I think to myself, I'm a year older and Christmas can't possibly be as fun as it was last year, but sure enough it never disappoints. I'm a month short of my 20th birthday and I felt as giddy as ever with this Christmas. Maybe it was because there was snow on the ground. Maybe it was because I was surrounded by family and friends. Maybe it was because of the Christmas music that blared through the house. Maybe it was the Christmas cookies and goodies I baked. Well no, it was actually all of those factors combining to make the Christmas season the best time of the year. And just like all my pasts Christmas' this was a great one.

Its impossible to rank your favorite Christmas gifts as different items have different meanings to you at different age levels. And like every Christmas family and friends are the ultimate gift that no material good could ever replace. And those two "gifts" become even more important as one ages and gets further and further away from childhood. But one cannot deny the great joy one receives in getting material gifts each Christmas. While there is no quantitative way to say this Christmas was better then the Christmas when I was 12 years old, I know I received 2 gifts this year that I will enjoy for a long time to come. One was from Santa and the other from my older brother.

The gift from Santa Claus is the 2004 NFL Record and Fact Book. Sure with every passing week in the NFL the records are changing, its 800 pages of information will keep my busy for a long time. I've read that it is a good gift to get every 5 years and until then I'll just grab my pen and edit the records for most TD passes in a season , most TDs by a tight end, consecutive games with a TD by a running back and so forth. And while it holds all these records, it too has a synopsis of every playoff game and SuperBowl in the history of the NFL. Talk about insane. This is the perfect gift for an NFL nut like me. Sure I know the popular records and facts but someone like me is always yearning to know all the quirky stuff. I won't ever have any downtime as long as this monster of a book is with me. To really get a feel for it, you'll have to thumb through it, and if you're lucky enough I just might let you do that. It also got me thinking that a job with the Elias Sports Bureau would be quite fun.

The other gift is the Official Rules of the NFL which my brother gave me. Sure enought I'm pretty acurate at making the calls and the penalty but again like the Record and Fact Book it contains all the specifics and such that somebody like me wants to know. In case you ever want to know what "chucking" is, its defined in Rule 3. Or maybe you want to know the responbilities of the back judge, well all that is laid out in Rule 15. Whatever you may be interested in about the rules of the game can be found in this book. Its perfect. Now that I know all the referees and signals, I can look up any penalty I am not familiar with or just want to know about more in depth. I'm going to have to kill time between the Super Bowl and the beginning of the 2005 season and these two books seem like they'll keep me busy.

This Christmas was great. Sure my presents no longer cover the entirety of the living room floor like they one did, and instead fit nicely in a small stack, but Christmas is always great. All while the material gifts are great, its the time spent with family and friends that make it all worth it. Only another 363 days until Christmas 2005 and I can't wait. Merry Christmas.

"Christmas Day is in our grasp, so long as we have hands to clasp!"