The Reason We Celebrate New Year's

New Year's Day is one of the biggest days in college football. But you knew that, didn't you? Well? Didn't you? I thought so. Lots of football games. The big bowl games are played on New Year's Day. Of course, nowadays there are always one or two games after New Year's. One is the so-called "National Championship" between the top two BCS teams. But, that whole farce is a topic for another day. But, I bet you can figure out how I feel about it, huh?

Anyway, lots of people watch football games on New Year's. In the past, I have, too. But not this year. Oh, I was interested in one game yesterday: Georgia vs Wisconsin. My daughter goes to the University of Georgia, so I was interested in that game. But, the rest of the games, while some good match-ups, just didn't do it for me. In the past, I'd spend all New Year's Day watching football, even if it was teams I didn't care for, or even hated. I used to really hate Notre Dame. It's not as much fun hating them any more, since they suck. I almost wish they'd have a good team one year, just so it would be fun to hate them again. But, I'll enjoy them sucking for a while, first. Anyhow, I watch less and less football on New Year's Day. This year, I didn't watch any.

Some years ago, I remember when TNT (or was it TBS) began running "A Christmas Story" for 24 hours on Christmas Day. Although it may have begun earlier, it was later when I discovered that the SciFi Channel was running marathons on holidays, too. And on New Year's Day, they run a Twilight Zone marathon. I enjoy watching those.

When I was younger, I used to enjoy watching shows like The Twilight Zone. They were scary. At least, to a young boy, they were. When my sisters and I were young, we were scared by all those shows. The Twilight Zone's eerie theme was a part of it, of course. But I enjoyed watching the monsters in the show. Not much else mattered to me. I liked seeing the monsters. Like the episode where the lady is all bandaged up because she's ugly, only at the end we find that she's pretty, and everyone else is an ugly monster. Or the one where the lady is really old, but looks young, because she steals the youth from people. At the end of that one, the guy she steals youth from turns to a skeleton before turning to dust. That was scary. Or the one where the tall aliens land and leave a book at the U.N. that turns out to be a cookbook. Or one of the countless other episodes that included monsters of one kind or another.

I really enjoyed watching The Twilight Zone. I didn't see all of the episodes when I was younger. In fact, I'm not sure I've seen all the episodes, even today. But I enjoy the shows. And not only those with monsters. The episodes the include only regular-looking people are pretty cool. Of course, like any series, some of the shows are lame. But most are pretty cool. And, every New Year's Day, I get to catch up and maybe see one that I haven't seen all of before. And I get to remember the shows I've seen before.

I sometimes even get to remember shows I've never seen.