What is on your Holiday shopping list?
My Holiday List? You mean for me? Riigghhttt!! I don't have much time to think about me. I have to think about my whole family which includes three siblings (two brothers, one younger one older who's married, and a younger sister) and my two parents. Combine that with my new family, aka the in-laws, which includes two brothers, a sister who's married, and my father and mother in-law. Sprinkle in a couple things for the new wife for Christmas and an anniversary that closely follows on Jan. 2nd and don't forget about the pooch. That puts me one doggie biscuit away from having Santa on speed dial. In other words, I don't have time to even think about what I may want for the Holidays. In all seriousness though, I'm going to get everything I want this holiday season; I'm going to be able to spend some quality time with my wife and both our families. At this time in my life having the opportunity to share the holidays with them means the most for me especially now that I'm living on the west coast and visits are few and far between.
What is your favorite Holiday tradition?
I'd have to say waking up early (that means not before 9:00 AM...its my offseason after all) and getting in a morning run to make room for the feast and activities that lay ahead. Sometimes I'm even able to coax my sis out to hit the pavement with me. The last three years my family has been doing a gift exchange. Everyone brings one unisex gift under $100 then we play some sort of game to fix the present picking order. We love this because it keeps costs down for the whole family while providing at least a half-day's worth of competitive activities. The games have changed over the years but have included: a poker tournament, a billiards tourney, and a wine tasting event where we all brought a bottle of wine under $20 and had a blind taste test. The order you finish in the game is the order you pick in the gift exchange. The winner of the game gets to pick last thus ensuring him or her the "best" gift as that person can pluck any previously opened gift. Rumor has it we are going to have a fishing tourni this year (my parents moved to Florida where fishing lakes are plentiful). I know, I know, fishing may sound a bit rednecky but what do you expect we're from Ohio. My family is very competitive and we always find ways to make it competitive when we are together, even on the holidays. Those are my favorite Holiday traditions. My least favorite tradition is probably tearing down the X-mas stuff the day after with brothers who are normally suffering the results of the night before and a few too many eggnogs.
What is your all-time favorite gift and why?
My all time favorite gift would have to be a set of soccer goals my parents gave me when I was about seven. My siblings and I have always been soccer players and we were in desperate need of some goals for the back yard as we had already destroyed the garage door and basement windows with flying soccer balls. I remember that Christmas. After we had opened our gifts from Santa and were entertaining the idea of going back to bed (back then we woke up at like 5:00 AM with Christmas morning excitement) my parents told us to look outside. There they were... they weren't regulation size but to me they were huge. My brothers and sister and I put on boots (not soccer boots, snow boots there was a foot of snow on the ground) and took to our new pitch. That was probably the smartest present my parents ever gave my siblings and I. We ended up playing most of that morning and by the time I was twelve those goals had taken more abuse than any MLS referee ever has. We had some monumental inter-neighborhood soccer games on those goals throughout my childhood. I appreciate that gift even more now when I look back on it. After putting us to bed that Christmas eve my parents sneaked into the garage assembled the goals, put up the nets, and braved the darkness, cold, and snow to set up our backyard soccer field in the wee hours that Christmas morning.
