Home for the holidays: Family, Star Wars and basketball
SAINT CLOUD — After crunching the numbers to be sure I’ll be back in time for the Granite City Classic basketball tournament, it looks like I’ll be able to make it home to Missouri for a few days this Christmas.
I’m really looking forward to the region-wide event, and have already spent some time grinding over my calendar thinking about the best way to cover as many teams as possible on Dec. 29 and 30. It’s a good thing the St. Cloud State men’s hockey team is out of town to play Bemidji State on Saturday. The women’s team is off until 2024.
For the GCC, seven area basketball gyms are hosting over eighty boys and girls teams that will play one or two games against a nontraditional opponent. Holdingford, Sartell-St. Stephen, Becker, ROCORI, St. Cloud Tech, St. Cloud Apollo, Albany and Sauk Rapids have teams playing at Tech, Apollo, Sartell, Sauk Rapids, St. John’s, St. Benedict or SCSU.
The Granite City Classic is in addition to other hockey, wrestling, dance and gymnastics events around the area post-holiday. St. Cloud Cathedral is hosting boys and girls basketball tournaments Dec. 27-28, there is a girls hockey tournament Dec. 27-28 at the Sheels Athletic Complex and a boys hockey tournament will be played Dec. 28-30 at the Municipal Athletic Complex. I’ll be getting back on the job on the 27th and will be bouncing north, south, east and west with a camera and notebook in hand.
Games that soon after Christmas dinner do not sound fun to me. I remember that first morning practice post-Thanksgiving or Christmas when the practice pennie fit a little tighter than it did a few days prior. Luckily my team, the Bowling Green Bobcats, got until the new year to get in shape for our holiday tournaments. While people are home it might be fun to message a few guys to try to put together a pickup game.
I’m looking forward to seeing my folks down the Mississippi River in Pike County, MO. Since moving to St. Cloud in March I’ve only been down for Thanksgiving. I drove the eight-and-a-halfish hours then, but for Christmas, I’m braving the airport lines. Between paying for parking, the drive from St. Louis to home, and the unpleasantness of air travel, it’s almost worth being bored in the car through Iowa.
The Glenns won’t be doing much for Christmas. My immediate family – my mom, dad and little brother – will go to the First Christian Church's Christmas Eve service then wake up to exchange gifts and eat breakfast. Around lunchtime, we’ll head over to my dad’s family’s house. My mom's family is much smaller and gets together for Easter, birthdays and other celebrations.
My paternal grandparents live about a ten-minute drive away from my childhood home on top of a hill outside of Louisiana, Missouri. The property was a place my family could go and be outside of town. During the warmer months, my brother George and I fished, hunted and explored the land. On a couple of Christmases when there was snow on the ground, we sledded down a hill where spring rains turned up arrowheads and morels.
My family’s most unique Christmas tradition is toward the end of the evening when the excitement of presents wears off, we always put on Star Wars. After a day of hanging out with extended family, most of the conversation has gone quiet, but people don’t quite want to leave yet.
I don’t know how my family became Star Wars fans because I’ve been a fan since I was a kid. I always wanted to watch Attack of the Clones because I liked the ending, but usually the family watches A New Hope on Christmas. Grandma and Grandpa have a VHS set that was put together before the CGI was added in later editions. I’m not a huge fan of most of the new movies, but Rogue One or Solo could be good to change things up this year.
The wood stove is usually a little too warm and I’m usually too full to make it to the end of the movie before falling asleep. Looking for photos for this story I found a video from last year of my dad and me snoring across from each other.
It’ll be nice to have that coziness again this year. Often the sports beat can feel frenetic, and winter might be my busiest season. Because of its pace, basketball is my favorite sport to cover and hockey is climbing up there for the same reason, but I’m looking forward to a few days off before catching six or more games in two days. Hopefully you have a few days off and experience your own cozy holiday. Then join the crowd at a game! There are plenty of good ones.
Contact reporter Reid Glenn at rglenn@gannett.com.
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This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: Reporter Reid Glenn looking forward to Granite City Classic
