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.

-- Thank you for reading. Comments and feedback are always welcome. Share a comment here, or send an email to kbotterman@gmail.com.

A few thoughts while reflecting on the year 2021

 

I am sitting on my sofa, a small dog sleeping at my side, following the time-honored tradition of reflecting on the past year and preparing for the year 2022.

I consider 2021 to be a good year, in spite of the challenges and trials that visited the nation and the world. 

Lori and I purchased a new vehicle (used, actually, but new to us), we enjoyed a summer trip to the Great Smoky Mountains, and we celebrated Christmas with a sibling we haven't seen since Covid-19 arrived in the U.S. 

Most importantly, we end the year with all of our family members in good health. A few good friends joined the ranks of the departed, and they are missed. We give thanks for having shared their journey, if even for a brief moment, and pray we will meet with them again.

Lori and I will celebrate tonight with dinner at one of our favorite local restaurants, a tradition we have followed for more than a decade now. A movie at the local theater was included in years past, but the pandemic forced our moviehouse to close its doors for good. I'm OK with that. My celebration is complete with just a quiet meal with my lovely wife.

I enjoy standing outdoors at midnight, listening to neighbors welcome the New Year with firecrackers (and a whole lot more). My days of playing with explosives are done, but I still get a kick from all the noise others produce. It is a challenge lately to stay up until midnight, but I plan to be outside, observing this tradition tonight, as I have for at least 40 years. 

We parted company with the late-night partying years ago, nearly 20 to be exact, and prefer the low-profile approach to the New Year. I enjoyed those gatherings as a younger man, but I don't miss the hangovers. We focus our energies now on celebrating the first full day of the New Year.

We celebrate with a variety of small plate foods. It's a tradition I picked up from a friend's family, after attending a gathering in their home in the early '70s. The party included some wonderful food and fun activities. It occurred to me that so much emphasis is put on the celebrations of the Eve that the day itself is overlooked. So I embraced and adopted a new tradition. 

We revised and changed the New Year's Day menu options over the years. When my daughter was in high school and college, we spent the day watching the college bowl games and enjoyed the Festival of Salty Snacks. It was mostly junk food, but we did include a few healthy options and some actual food, usually chicken wings and pizza. The eating would commence in the morning, while viewing the Tournament of Roses Parade and continue throughout the day.

Time and my doctor recently forced another menu revision. We now offer more healthier options (veggies, sliced fruit), but we still have a few salty items, and the creamed herring, of course.

Garrison Keillor, one of my favorite writers, offered the following this morning. I will end with this, and hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

    

"Today is New Year's Eve, a day to take stock of the old year and make changes for a new year.

People across the world tonight will be linking arms at the stroke of midnight and singing "we'll take a cup o' kindness yet, for auld lang syne," from the Scottish folk song popularized by Robert Burns (books by this author). In Scotland, New Year's Eve marks the first day of Hogmanay, a name derived from an Old French word for a gift given at the New Year. There's a tradition at Hogmanay known as "first-footing": If the first person to cross your threshold after midnight is a dark-haired man, you will have good luck in the coming year. Other customs vary by region within Scotland, but most involve singing and whiskey.

English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (books by this author) wrote: "Ring out the old, ring in the new / Ring, happy bells, across the snow / The year is going, let him go / Ring out the false, ring in the true."

Here in the United States, the custom of raising and dropping a giant ball arose out of the time when signals were given to ships at harbor. Starting in 1859, a large ball was dropped at noon every day so sailors could check their ship chronometers.

The Times Square celebration dates back to 1904, when The New York Times opened its headquarters on Longacre Square. The newspaper convinced the city to rename the area "Times Square," and they hosted a big party, complete with fireworks, on New Year's Eve. Some 200,000 people attended, but the paper's owner, Adolph Ochs, wanted the next celebration to be even splashier. In 1907 the paper's head electrician constructed a giant lighted ball that was lowered from the building's flagpole. The first Times Square Ball was made of wood and iron, weighed 700 pounds, and was lit by a hundred 25-watt bulbs. Now it's made of Waterford crystal, weighs almost six tons, and is lit by more than 32,000 LED lights. The party in Times Square is attended by up to a million people every year.

Other cities have developed their own ball-dropping traditions. Atlanta, Georgia, drops a giant peach. Eastport, Maine, drops a sardine. Ocean City, Maryland, drops a beach ball, and Mobile, Alabama, drops a 600-pound electric Moon Pie. In Tempe, Arizona, a giant tortilla chip descends into a massive bowl of salsa. Brasstown, North Carolina, drops a Plexiglas pyramid containing a live possum; and Key West, Florida, drops an enormous ruby slipper with a drag queen inside it."

-- Thank you for reading. Comments and questions are always welcome. Feel free to comment here or send an email to kbotterman@gmail.com. May you enjoy a blessed and healthy new year.