Merry Christmas

OK, so, this may seem a bit early, but ... the Mrs. JCCW and yours truly are taking off tomorrow for a Christmas holiday with family on the East coast, and I have no idea how much blogging there's going to be between now and our return on the 26th. My guess is: maybe some, especially if/when the coaching staff fills out. But not a lot.

This will be your country mouse Auburn Blogger's first trip to New York, so wish me luck I don't get myself hit by a bus or anything. Actually, don't do that: we're getting there by driving through Canada and down past Niagara Falls. In December. Canada. So skip the wish-lucking, and pray we don't freeze to death in a ditch somewhere. That would be better.

OK, three things I need you to do for me while I'm gone:

1. Don't you dare fall for that big-media line about there being "too many bowls." These are the last crumbs, the final few morsels of college football we get until going without for eight freaking months, and you should love all of them unconditionally. OK, so even I wouldn't carve out any plans to watch Louisiana Tech-Northern Illinois, but no one's strapping you down Clockwork-Orange-style and forcing you to watch, are they? I say if a bunch of nutso civic-minded businessmen want to blow a wad of cash on a game no will watch but that will feel like a reward to two bunches of kids who have worked their tails off all season and deserve some kind of thanks for it, by all means, be my guest.

2. Understand, dearest readers, how much your support means to me and this weblog. As you might imagine, the last couple of weeks have been very good for the JCCW's traffic numbers, but even better has been the seasonlong flow of unnecessarily kind comments and e-mails and even, for a little while there, ticket offers. (Speaking of e-mails, I have a metric ton of them in my inbox I swear I'll get to over the next few weeks. If you're expecting to hear from me: Sorry. It'll happen.) The goal here is just to give you one more place to read something worthwhile, or maybe sometimes better than worthwhile, about this cra-hay-hayzy Auburn football team we all love so much for reasons none of us can really explain--that so many of you seem to think I'm doing something sorta right in regards to that goal is humbling. Every last one of you is awesome. Even the Tide fans. Some of them.

3. If you're not watching the entire 30-minute version at some point this holiday season, spend 10 minutes--or at the very least five minutes picking it up at the 4:00 mark--watching this:



Merry Christmas, everyone. See you soon.