Remembering a New Year's Day tradition

 

I am sitting on my sofa, watching snow fall and listening to Otto snore. Lori is involved in a phone conversation with a friend. I mourn my late tradition of watching the major college bowl games on New Year's Day.

The adoption of the college football playoff system a few years back killed a tradition I observed since childhood. In those years, my family would gather in our TV room on New Year's Day, eat food, nurse hangovers (some of us, at least), nap, and watch hours of football. 

The day might involve four, maybe five different bowl games and several arguments over the calls officials made during those games. Friends would sometimes join us, a few carried with them gifts of seasonal spirits. 

The day involved a lot of TV, starting first with coverage of the Tournament of Roses parade, followed by games. It might be 11 p.m. before the last man sitting in front of the TV called it a day and shut things down for the night - and for the season, because New Year's Day bowl games in those days also signaled the end of college football for several months.

That's all gone now. Done in by a variety of factors, but mostly because the powers behind college football adopted a playoff system that took some of my favorite bowls and moved them to New Year's Eve and extended the college game schedule to well beyond January 1. 

The Rose Bowl, the Cotton Bowl, the Orange Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, the Gator Bowl, and the Peach Bowl were my New Year's Day favorites. Some are still played today, but not on New Year's Day, and so the day is not the same for me. 

During the years when my daughter attended high school and college, we would watch the bowl games and enjoy what we titled the "Festival of Salty Snacks." A table in our TV room was set with bowls of our favorite snack foods and crackers. I'd add chicken wings, pizzas, and other items throughout the day and night. We'd even eat a few vegetables to relieve some of the guilt we felt about eating so poorly for hours. 

We'd watch our favorite teams from the Big Ten Conference, the Big 12, the SEC, and discuss everything from individual plays to our favorite brand of snacks. 

My daughter graduated from college years ago, resides in a big city, and is rarely able to join us for New Year's Day. Some of the relatives and friends who once shared in our annual ritual have passed away, and others have moved to distant parts.

My wife and I still enjoy the small plates, but now we celebrate the Festival of Foods - vegetables and sliced fruit replaced corn chips and pretzels, and baked chicken replaced the chicken wings featured in years gone by. Change is part of life, and we adapt to the changes we encounter.

Still, I miss the tradition of viewing a New Year's Day college football marathon and remember it with warm fondness.

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