The Super Bowl was like a holiday for my family and the neighborhood I grew up in. Every year for the Super Bowl, about 10 families would get together and come up with all different types of ways to watch the game. Obviously for the kids, we didn’t pay much attention to anything but the food and ways to annoy the dads. The dads were probably the most serious I have ever seen on Sunday nights. They would all sit on the couch with a beer in their hands and put money on who they wanted to win. There was obviously no room for anyone else on the couches so the moms did their best to find a quieter place to be.
We would have platters of food on my aunts downstairs bar, I remember that’s the only part that interested me. As soon as the food came out, annoying the dads didn’t seem so important anymore. I’m convinced the moms put so much effort into the food because they knew all the kids would only care about that.
Once the food ran out and all the kids were bored of watching a ball fly back and forth, the moms would have to make up ridiculous games for us to play to keep us preoccupied. One that I remember vividly is pin the football on the player. I was a little tomboy growing up so I always played football and hockey with the boys in the neighborhood. Another game that grabbed the kids attention instantly, is if you guess what a brand is going to do in their commercials, we would get a dollar. This obviously was a lot of money for the kids and it helped the moms not have to chase us around the whole time.
My favorite part of the Super Bowl Sunday games when I was little was when it was done. After the game ended, we would all play WII bowling. And just like the dads did for the game, we would make brackets on who we thought would win. We still do WII bowling for Christmas so I believe Super Bowl Sunday was a great tradition that helped make memories that I’ll remember forever.