Twas The Night Before Christmas

Twas a time when TigerBlog could remember all of the words to the poem "A Visit From St. Nick," which starts out "Twas the night before Christmas."

These days, he can't quite remember it all in order, though if prompted with the first word or two of a verse, he can get the rest of it.

His most recent box of Corn Flakes served as a great prompt. It has a picture of Santa on the front and the words to "A Visit From St. Nick" on the side.

Today, of course, is the day before Christmas. TB has always liked the holiday.

As he said last year (and the year before that and the year before that):

The surest way to get TigerBlog to tear up is invite him over, click HERE and to fast-forward to the 7:00 mark.

Never fails.

If you don't want to go through all that, then the link takes you to the last scene of the Christmas classic "It's A Wonderful Life."

The line that always, 100 percent of the time, brings a tear to TB's eyes is Harry Bailey's toast to his brother. TB could watch it in early July on a day far removed from Christmas and still it'll have the same effect.

Want to see some more of TB's favorite Christmas clips? Then watch one of these:

* the end scene from "A Christmas Story"

* bonus scene from the same movie

* Charlie Brown makes a bold purchase

* the Grinch's heart grows

* this one is more serious (go to the 20:00 mark)

* this one is the greatest ever version of any Christmas song ever performed 

* this one is second

* this one is really cute

There are hundreds of other Christmas clips TigerBlog could leave for you. And you also have your favorites that are different from his.

Like most years, it seems like Christmas has sort of snuck up. Is it really the end of December already?

If you're dreaming of a white Christmas, you probably don't want to go to Princeton. There have been very few white Christmases that TB can remember, and this one will certainly not be one.

There are no athletic events this week for Princeton. The weekend will be a busy one, with a bunch of events at home, including in men's hockey (Saturday at 7 against Quinnipiac) and then a basketball doubleheader Sunday (women vs. New Hampshire at 1, men vs. Lehigh at 4).

The wrestling team will also be competing, at the Midlands tournament at Northwestern. The men's volleyball team, who is the preseason favorite to repeat as EIVA champion, opens its season in California, against UC-Irvine Sunday and then Pepperdine Tuesday.

The match against Pepperdine will be on New Year's Eve. It'll also be the last day of the decade, and as TB said yesterday, there are some decade review pieces on the way.

He read a story yesterday that he found fascinating. It essentially was a series of short answers to the questions of "what is the most likely thing to change in the next decade" and "what is the most likely thing not to change in the next decade," and then this question was asked of a bunch of people in a bunch of different fields.

It got TB to thinking back, to 10 years ago, and what has changed the most since then with Princeton Athletics and what is most unchanged. He's not really completely sure, to be honest, since he's come up with a bunch of different answers.

As for the 10 years moving forward? That's anyone's guess. At some point, TB presumes, the world of athletics will become "futuristic," and by "futuristic," he means like what you saw if you ever saw the original version of "Rollerball" with James Caan.

He's reasonably sure that "Rollerball" isn't going to be coming around anytime soon.

On the other hand, if you read the story that TB read, you'd see that these experts are pretty certain that the world of 2030 will bear little resemblance to 2020, including flying taxis. TB isn't sure about that either.

TB will attack these questions a little later.

In the meantime, have yourself a merry little Christmas.

Just like Judy Garland meant you to have.