By Richard Carrier
Contributing Writer

Our county high schools had almost nothing scheduled on Christmas week; for the first time and over the weekend prior to Christmas, Powhatan played in the Richmond Times Dispatch Tournament, but their participation took little away from their family time during the holiday. (In the one case where the revised snow schedule did conflict with family plans, the player opted for the family commitment and rightfully so.

However, there were some college football bowl games contracted for this past week and, although they were minor events as far as the bowl schedule is concerned, they still took hundreds of athletes, coaches, band members, cheerleaders and support staff away from home for most of the week. Plus there were several collegiate basketball tournaments, as far away as Hawaii, that took a lesser number of folks away from home.

College coaches will argue that the Bowl games are an earned reward for months and even years of hard work on the football field. But to me these Christmas week bowl games and tournaments take on an aspect of punishment for the kids, with the rewards being the additional funds and recruiting publicity generated for the athletic departments and the revenues going to the hosting venues.

The National Football League got by with only one holiday-week game, a fairly well timed and significant Christmas night contest, but the National Basketball Association blanketed the entire Christmas Day programming. No less than five games, starting at ten o’clock in the morning and running until past my bedtime, covered coast-to-coast action. These were the only events scheduled for actual Christmas Day time-slots and a couple of interesting thoughts evolved from those games; the first being my own observation and another being that of a Head Coach.

My thought was: why and how had ten to fifteen thousand fans in each arena taken at least half of the daylight hours on Christmas day to travel to the arena, sit through the game and then travel home, instead of celebrating the day with their families? Other fans who watched the game or games (hopefully not all of them) at home also sacrificed family time, hopefully to a much lesser degree.

Orlando Magic Head Coach Stan VanGundy saw the situation of Christmas Day games by a more internal focus. His team traveled to Boston to play on Christmas Day and he didn’t like being away from his family at all. Perhaps exacerbated by the fact his guys took a beating from the Celtics, VanGundy proposed a five day Christmas hiatus for the NBA. One cynical announcer pointed out that it did not seem to be a disadvantage to the traveling squads, as being away from the distractions of the holidays resulted in the visitors winning four out of the five contests on Christmas Day.

Now, before the cynics amongst my readership do an “oh yeah and how did you come by all of this information if you weren’t watching basketball on Christmas Day? Huh? How about explaining that you old toad.”

Because the Old Toad’s small family, particularly the Old Toad’s Princess of a wife, are — and is — very smart (some even say wise). The Carrier family is one of those blended families with three grandmothers and three grandfathers living in four separate homes. We all, deservedly, demand equal time with our kids and especially the grand children on holidays. Plus our children are great parents and understand how important the extended family is to the growth and well-being of the young ones, not to mention the egos of the grandparents. Years ago Princess Wife came up with a unique but very effective plan for sharing time. On Thanksgiving the Carriers have a family breakfast which gives us time with the kids and grandkids before they begin the Three-Thanksgiving-Day Turkey-Dinner-Trek across Goochland, Powhatan and Chesterfield Counties.

Christmas is even cooler. We get the entire group for Christmas Eve and become the first Santas of their season. For six hours on Christmas Eve we ate, played games, opened gifts, laughed and loved like no other time during the year. It is the most precious time to me and I would not (nor would Princess Wife) allow any interruption or interference with those coveted hours. On Christmas Day the kids do their own family Christmas and then repeat the Tri-county Trek. Grandma and I wake up late, open our gifts, have a late breakfast and then take a nap. This year we got involved in a Christmas movie marathon covering the entire spectrum of the true Christmas Spirit. I slipped in one basketball game (Cleveland at Los Angeles) which provided all of the preceding information and the inspiration for this Extra Points.

This is the final Extra Points for 2009 and I want to take this opportunity to wish every last one of you the most joyous holiday season. Thanks to the coaches, athletic directors, administration, parents and the fans for the most rewarding year as your advocate. But most of all, thanks for the wonderful group of kids you have mentored, fostered, guided and loved.