The history of bad gift-giving dates back to the very first Christmas when, according to the gospel of the song “The Little Drummer Boy,” someone gave the baby Jesus a drum solo. This is an objectively terrible present for a newborn. (If you don’t believe me, find a couple of new parents and walk into their living room pounding a snare, see how it goes over.) It’s really an objectively terrible present for anyone — “Here, enjoy the worst part of every rock song, but without the rock song.” Unless you’re Dave Grohl, stick with a Starbucks gift card or a donation to The Human Fund.
The Green Bay Packers are serving as pigskin Santas this Christmas afternoon when they take on the Miami Dolphins, and they’ll either be delivering fans a terrific gift or leaving them something that would make a lump of coal look like a Red Ryder BB gun.
It’s do-or-die-hard time right now in Green Bay. The playoffs are a distant hope, and yet unlikely miracles are what the holiday season is all about. There is a long, snowy path to the playoffs, but it goes over the river and through the Seattle Seahawks, New York Giants, and Detroit Lions. No one’s going to be laughing all the way; this is bound to be one white-knuckled sleigh ride.
A win in sunny Miami wouldn’t guarantee Green Bay anything, but it would keep playoff hopes burning like that last flickering ember warming the Little Match Girl in the snow. (Warning: If you’re really expecting a Packers playoff appearance, don’t read to the end of The Little Match Girl.) Certainly it would have all the Cheese Heads in Cheeseville holding hands in a circle around the Titletown tree.
The Dolphins are also fighting for their own post-season lives, and Tua Tagovailoa will do everything in his power to keep the Packers from having a Mele Kalikimaka. If the Packers lose, knocking themselves out of contention for football in late January, it’ll be a swift kick in the nog right in the middle of the holidays. It would be a brutal end to a disappointing season at the worst possible time.
Meanwhile, the Minnesota Vikings could play Grinch to the Green and Gold, not by winning but by losing to the New York Giants on December 24. The Vikings would do both of their division foes a huge solid by gift-wrapping a can of whoop-ass to the G-Men. The Packers need all the help they can get, and ‘tis the season to think of others. Strange as it is to root for your rivals, you might need to carve yourself some cheese horns to wear for the noon game on Xmas Eve. (Skol, Pack, Skol?)
The thing about this Christmas in Wisconsin is that there’s no moderate outcome, no football equivalent of the comfy and practical sweater your grandma gets you. A win would get everyone higher than Rudolph’s antlers and potentially be the beginning of a late-season hot streak that propels the Pack to one of the all-time great regular-season comebacks. A loss would bah your humbug from now until draft day.
This game in Miami could also turn out like one of the greatest gift-giving tragedies in all of holiday lore. In O. Henry’s darkly ironic fable “The Gift of the Magi,” a young wife sells her beautiful, long hair to buy her husband an expensive chain for his pocket watch for Christmas, only to discover that he sold his pocket watch to buy her an ivory comb for her long, beautiful hair.
The Packers’ late-season resurgence has been a gift to all fans who were as despondent as George Bailey peering over the edge of the bridge in It’s A Wonderful Life. (Hopefully, nobody was quite that upset, there’s always next season, folks!) More than just decorating their ugly mid-season record with some lights and ornaments, some of these big wins have shown how good the team has the potential to be. The bright star of Christian Watson glowing on the horizon, the steadying of the offensive line, Aaron Rodgers simply having a wonderful time with his new pass-catchers, and super-special teamer Keisean Nixon turning out to be the gift that keeps on giving — it all the stage for the best playoff pageant ever next season. And if this team can somehow sneak into the playoffs this January, they might do some real damage.
However, a loss in Miami or another L in subsequent games against the Vikings and Lions would not only render this late-season surge moot, but it would render the whole thing ironically unhelpful. Oh, you sold your playoff hopes to get me a lovely draft pick for next season? Too bad, I pawned my draft status so you could go to the playoffs. (Twist ending!)
The NFL schedule has decreed it: Packers fans are getting something on December 25 this year. Whether it shines like a diamond or smells from across the room remains to be seen.
