thanksgiving tradition part 2....game day

the pinnacle point of the rivalry between texas and texas a&m is the annual football match up held on thanksgiving day.

watching this game has always been a part of my family's thanksgiving day tradition. the success of either team, has ebbed and flowed over the years. when i was at a&m we had a really good football team and beat texas all four years i was there. in recent years, texas has had the better team. and of course since its a rivalry game, anything can happen. growing up, watching this game was usually tension free, since everyone there was cheering for the horns. this changed when i went to a&m, i was a vocal supporter, changing the dynamic in the living room a bit. my dad was a good sport, but i am sure he would have rather watched the game in peace and quiet.

college football is part of who i am, growing up in texas its hard not to like football. my family looks forward to the start of college football every year. every weekend starts and ends the same way, with a discussion of the match ups and how the teams fared. my brothers, dad and i talk on the phone and text through out the day. we bond over football. we have bonded even more since my blood has returned to burnt orange.

let me explain. when i moved to the northeast, i wasn't able to watch many a&m games on tv, really the only one they showed was the thanksgiving day game. but as texas started to win, i was able to get those games and started watching them. slowly returning to my roots. in 2005 when it looked like they were going to make a run at the national championship i thought it would be great if we got my dad tickets to the game for christmas. it was at that point that i was faced with a pivotal decision on thanksgiving day, who to root for. if texas lost they wouldn't play usc in the national championship and my dad and brothers would have tickets to game they didn't care about. so i rooted for the horns, they beat a&m , went to the national title game and won.

don't get me wrong, i will watch a&m if they are on tv. and i still hope they win. but i know more about the team in burnt orange, watch more of their games and more concerned about where they sit in the bcs rankings.

when i was pregnant with cooper my due date was december 9th, but i had this feeling that he was going to be born on thanksgiving day. and sure enough he made himself known to the world, late in the 4th quarter of the texas-texas a&m game. i was never going to be one of those parents who dressed their kids in clothes that screamed where they went to college or relived their college days through their children. i don't care where they go to school, as long as they go. but by being born during the big game, cooper earned the right to go to either school, no questions asked.

his little brother will be born on a holiday if all goes according to plan but it wont be thanksgiving. and since cooper could choose either texas school, its only fitting that the same rule apply for the bean. so i made him a pair of burnt orange booties and a pair of maroon booties. he can decided for himself what color blood is running through his veins, but i have a feeling it will be burnt orange. his father is hoping he follows his footsteps and attends an ivy league school, after all they have better hockey teams.

as for the game today, well i am hoping that texas wins so that they can return to the national championship game, but if a&m wants to make them work for the win, that's ok too.