This is a wake up call, an opportunity to stand up.
Thanksgiving and Christmas are traditionally times when families gather together to celebrate and spend some quality time with each other. In the past, this has been considered sacred time, and major league sporting contests were not scheduled in the afternoon and evening hours on these days. That popular professional sports should be televised across the country on these days is divisive and will be the cause of conflict in families all over America this Christmas as the National Basketball League kicks off its' season.
Now, maybe more than ever before, spending quality time with friends and family uplifts us and helps us cope more effectively in these very strange times. You have the power to do something about it.
The same kind of scheduling craziness happened on Thanksgiving. In previous years, the NFL games were over by early afternoon. Cutting into dinner time in some time zones, the National Football League scheduled a third Thanksgiving Day game into dinner time for folks in some time zones. Some women, already seeing themselves as "football widows" on Sundays now had the challenge of having the men in their lives want to spend a good portion of the afternoon or evening watching football while the women and children did other things.
Five National Basketball Association games have been scheduled for Christmas Day, spanning afternoon hours and starting as late as 10:30 pm Eastern Time. Some fans will want to watch their teams play and will be angry with those who resent them for it. Much of the feminine contingent will be upset with their husbands and boyfriends for making sports more important than connecting with family. They will see their partners' insistence on watching TV at this time as an insult, evidence of disrespect.
People often travel great distances to get together on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Many of us party with relatives that we only see once or twice per year, or even less frequently. Neices and nephews cross paths with aunts, uncles and cousins that they only see rarely. It's traditional family time.
Rather than see these games as thorns in our collective side, we might look at it as an opportunity. Collectively, we can let the NBA, the television networks and their corporate sponsors that we will not be rewarding them for creating such division among us.
This is not a time for pettiness and control, not a way for those who want to watch basketball to exert their authority and self-righteousness: their truly artificial power. And it is not a time for those who do not want the TV turned on during Christmas dinner hour to be resentful that others in the family insist on it.
It's time for rabid basketball fans to see this as chance to choose for family and true social time. It's time for us to collectively say that this is a family day, a time for unity, togetherness, talking with each other, catching up, being supportive of each other.
It's time for us to come together despite all the hype that the media is putting on having us watch these games. Like so much else out there in the "external" world, this is an opportunity to speak with unity and power as our response. And the best way that we can do that is unite in choosing to keep the television turned off after noon or 1 pm on Sunday.
If enough of us choose to do that as a vote for what is best for the family, then our choice will make an impact. The Nielson ratings will be much lower. Advertisers will not get their silly messages into your head. And maybe fewer of us will rush to spend money to actually go to the arenas to see these games. Next year, the professional sports franchises may think again about scheduling games during these sacred family times.
Like they say in the wonderful online movie, "Ghetto Physics," it's time to stand up.
If you think it's time to stand up, please talk about this with your family and friends.
