Sports Moments and Christmas

The NBA has played on Christmas Day since 1947, and families made their way to the courts and had a good time. Now the NFL has scheduled a rare Friday game(Christmas),too. The Christmas holiday has seen some amazing sports moments: the New York Knicks B. King scored 60 points in 1960; Phil Jackson won his 1000 win as a coach in 2008; the longest game in football history was between the Dolphins and Chiefs in 1971 when the overtimes went on and on; New Mexico's Kate Hnida was the first woman to play in a Division 1-A NCAA game in 2002.

The Christmas party that Wilson High School had  on the day school was out for the holidays  was the best I've ever seen. Each class had certain responsibilities, and the order never changed. As soon as the last lunch had been served in the lunchroom, it was up to the sophomore class to get the room straight, tables set up for the party, chairs where they needed to be. Then they brought in the refreshments--miles of dip and chips and sandwiches and brownies and cookies and cake. It would cause any tv cooking show to look in wonder. The Junior class had the annual task to make up an elaborate treasure hunt for the Senior class, so that class had to go out immediately to find the necessary things in a record time. The Juniors also had made up games for the four classes to play once the Seniors returned, and they were all competition that had the faculty and students roaring so loud that the room was shaking. There was so much laughing going on that you'd wonder that there could be any problems in any world.Sometimes games were very simple; other times it was strategy, but the honor of the Senior class was always to be the highest scoring of the 4 groups.

One particular party I was watching the fun when suddenly the entire Senior class let out a whoop, something near a scream and dived for the head table where a couple of unsuspecting freshmen were about to make a move. I couldn't imagine what had happened. Seems the Seniors had bought a Christmas present for me(I was the Senior sponsor), and it was a gorgeous wicker basket with Christmas ribbons and brightly polished apples that looked like the real thing but weren't. It had been sitting on the head table, and I thought it was just a beautiful centerpiece, not knowing it was going to be mine to take home. The two freshmen had been so fooled by the apples that they had decided that the wonderful caramel dip that someone had made would be even better with slices of apple and had their hands at the edge of the table ready to go for the basket and tear into the apples. In moves that would set world records the Senior class stopped the action and preserved the basket, bringing it to me and telling me I'd better keep it in a safe place before some other lower class kid was enticed by the great caramel dip.Then the freshmen class had to do cleanup, so they had to work hard to see that the room was like it had been, grumbling but knowing that next year, the class coming up would have to do all the work.

Sometimes Christmas is a difficult time. In December 1845 the first wave of German immigrants landed on the Texas shore, first at Galveston, and then were taken over to Indianola east of there. It had come after a really hard trip on ships where as many as 1 in 6 died and were buried at sea. When the ships landed at Indianola, there were supposed to be wagons to take them into the HIll Country. But the teamsters had gone off for better paying jobs, so there were no wagons. By Christmas there was cholera and famine with no food available except the ducks that were still swimming off shore. There were no shelters for them to be in, so some tried to make tents out of the quilts they had brought, but with every rain, the tents collapsed. Some tried to make blocks out of the sand and dirt, and they, too, collapsed in the rain. And ships kept coming to be greeted by the awful sight of the first who had come on shore. More than 500 said they wouldn't stay and went back to Germany. But that first Christmas the bravest refused to say that coming to  live in this new land of Texas was a mistake and kept saying that one day the wagons would be there and they would make their homes in the spot that would be beautiful.

Sports and good fun and food can all be a part of Christmas, but this year we can be  like the first settlers with  determination that the wagons will come and that life will be better. Their bravery can be a model for us.