It is fitting that on the Eve of the Christ child’s birth… the oldest rivalry in the NFL plays a game.
No… it’s not really that important, but the subject grabbed your attention.
You are thinking, it’s Christmas Eve and Jumbo is Chalking about football?
The Southside Cardinals versus the Northside Bears. A White Sox and Cubs game, but on the gridiron.
What if?
What if the Cardinals still called Chicago home? It is unfortunate that the football Cardinals were exiled to a baseball town and now they play football somewhere near Mexico.
The reason why we have so many native Chicagoans who are Packer fans is because the Cardinals left Chicago. It also helped that they left in 1959 and the Packers were at the beginning of a dynasty that year. It’s also because Cardinal fans hated the Bears and Halas, just like Sox fans hate the Cubs.
The subject that I spent the last thirty minutes tossing and turning in bed wasn’t this football game. It wasn’t about Baby Jesus and his birth next to a trough full of feed.
I was tossing and turning thinking about widows. Which could be associated with the NFL. Football has created many Sunday afternoon widows.
I thought about the Virgin Mary. At one point Joseph dies and she becomes a single mom raising the Son of God. (Sorry to my Jewish friends, G-d.)
I’ve dated several widows since my Exile west of Mannheim ended. The difference between dating a widow and dating a divorced woman is extreme.
Divorced women pretty much chose to end their relationship. The love was gone. Widows don’t have the choice to end their marriage. Widows are still madly in love.
The Shepkids and I had a newly widowed lady over to the house last night. That is the reason I tossed and turned before I finally got the big cheeks off the box springs.
Christmas time does a total mind fuck on showing us what has left our lives.
Something as simple as a restaurant to something as painful as a spouse or in most cases our parents.
Let’s walk into this at an easy pace….
I miss going to Gennaro’s down on Taylor Street the week before Christmas. It’s closed….
For years my dad took us to a place on the near Southside called Sauers right before Christmas. They tore it down when they expanded McCormick Place.
I miss my Gramma on Christmas. The smell of her house, the traditions and the family stories
I miss drinking on Christmas Eve with my buddies and then going to Midnight Mass completely shit faced. That’s when you realize you should have taken a piss before you left the tavern.
I miss my parents on Christmas. I miss my mom letting me open presents as soon as she wrapped them. I think she would wrap one on December 19th on purpose. Just so she could see my joy a few days early.
I miss asking my dad if I could open a present early. He would usually say, “you gotta be shitting me son? We don’t unwrap gifts until Mary wraps up the Baby Jesus!!!”
Last night my Mother in Law missed the love of her life. I’m so proud of the Shepkids and how they made their grieving grandmother feel a tad better on the Eve of the Eve.
I mentioned how Christmas points out many of the things that we have lost in life. Christmas also does a helluva job bringing us all together.
I’ll never again sneak one of my Gramma’s cookies when she isn’t looking. My mom will never wrap another present for me. My dad will never drive us into the city for a pre Christmas dinner and I don’t plan on going to mass all twated up on Old Style and RumpleMinze ever again.
I do hope I have more Christmas gifts to exchange with my children and I pray that Christmas time brings less grief and more joy to all the Chalkheads that I love.
Enjoy spying for flying reindeer tonight.
