Opening Week is Like Christmas

When I was 7, Christmas was the best day of the year.  My mom would go way over the top for Christmas.  I'd always get the toy I wanted and a few other pretty sweet little things.  However, it wasn't necessarily the one specific present that made Christmas morning so special, it was the enormity of all the presents.  My siblings and I would open countless beautifully wrapped boxes.  We would each likely get a few gifts that we truly wanted, but we would also get box after box of clothes.  Some were awesome, like that cool new jacket you really wanted.  And some not so much, like four more pairs of whitey tighties.  In a household with four kids, I think my parents bought us clothes twice a year.  The first on a back to school trip for some essentials like pants and shirts and then Christmas, when more socks and underwear and coats and hats and gloves and anything possible that a kid needs.  All these things were meticulously placed under the tree to create an image so grand it would impress anyone.  It wasn't long before I realized that the majority of the presents were things like socks and underwear, but for that one moment when I came down the stairs and saw the tree for the first time on Christmas morning, the optimism about the contents of all those presents led to sheer joy.  Those presents could contain gifts as great as my imagination.  

On Saturday (or Friday for Sparties) we get to open our presents.  They aren't all going to be the shiny new toy we so desire, but for the next few days they are wrapped so pretty that visions of heismans dance in our heads.   In a few weeks, after the presents are opened and the contents revealed, optimism will give way to realism.  That magnificently wrapped present I can picture containing a 5 star who finally reached his potential as a junior or a sophomore All American at linebacker...no, that box probably contains a new pair of pants, usable sure, but nothing to be excited about.

Opening week is all about optimism, I'm basking in it's glow right now.  I'm hoping a few more gifts, when ripped open on Saturday, turn out to be sweet new All-Big Ten players rather than crummy socks.