Time to move on for Christmas and college football

Is it just me or are there a lot of private homes and businesses with Christmas decorations still up? There seem to be more than a few homes and businesses still sprouting holy wreaths, plastic Santas and those weird animated wire reindeer.

Now I'm not one of these people who arises early on Dec. 26 to take down every last stitch of yuletide decor but, growing up, we always adhered to the policy that by New Year's Day, it was time to move on.

I hold that philosophy when it comes to college football as well. I'm sitting here on Jan. 7 watching the BCS "national championship" game and that's just wrong just like the Super Bowl in February or the World Series in November or, for that matter, high school football games in the middle of August. Everything wants to overstay its welcome these days.

Here's the drill: you finish up college football on Jan. 1, except for the all-star games which nobody cares about anyway. Then you deal with January's dismal weather by focusing on college basketball and the NFL playoffs, which should wrap up neatly by the end of the month. Then February, the focus on college hoops intensifies but, at the same time, you have spring training to offer the eternal hope that it will be warm again real soon.

By March, it's all college basketball, which concludes just as it's time to start playing baseball, just like the way just before it hit the ground and exploded, the Road Runner would step out of a phone booth Wile E. Coyote had pushed off a cliff. It's seamless.

I can't get into NBA and NHL playoffs when they're still going on after Memorial Day. I used to but I just can't do it anymore. Sports are about seasonal rhythms for me. Just like that old song by The Byrds (which I think was taken from a Bible verse) : "To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven."

Right now, it's time to watch the ending of a game I very nearly turned the channel on an hour ago. The Legend of Garrett Gilbert (or is it Gilbert Garrett?) is about to be written.