I always managed to cover those Christmas Eve Day games and make it home in time to be with the family.

My mom is no longer with us, but the Christmas Eve gathering has continued ever since, the one exception being a bow to the pandemic in 2020. When I bought the drafty old place in 1995, my mother loved it so much she announced it would be a splendid setting for our annual Christmas Eve family gathering. This is because Christmas Eve happens to be a very important event at my house - literally, my house. kickoff, at Foxboro Stadium and Gillette Stadium. Just thinking about that commercial conjures images of Raiders versus Chiefs, Sunday at 4 p.m., NBC, with Curt Gowdy and Al DeRogatis in the booth.īut I’ve blotted out all the Patriots games I’ve covered over the years that were played on Christmas Eve Day, with a 1 p.m.

As a stand-alone, the commercial has nothing to do with football, except that it aired nonstop during late-season NFL games. My other warm-and-fuzzy football/Christmas memory? That would be the annual rolling out of the Norelco television commercial showing a stop-motion Santa Claus riding down a snowy hill atop an oversized electric razor, with “Jingle Bells” as the mood music. (As an aside, everyone has a story about their mom throwing away their baseball cards.) I’m certain every kid I knew growing up found one of these games waiting under the tree on Christmas morning I’m also certain nobody ever played Electric Football more than a couple of times before the thing was then pushed under the bed, not to be seen again until they went away to college and their parents cleaned out the bedroom.

It wasn’t uncommon for the player with the ball to make a mad dash for his own end zone. If it will please the NFL, then, and even if it doesn’t, I’ll begin by noting that the two football/Christmas connections that stand out in my mind involve commercialism.Īnyone out there remember Electric Football? It was a goofy tabletop game from the 1960s in which rival “coaches” positioned their teams on a metal field that vibrated once the juice was turned on, thus sending the “players” scurrying in every direction.

The night before christmas clement