Today begins two of my favorite days of the year. That is New Year’s Eve bowls. It was always a family tradition to gather around the television set to watch numerous bowl games. These are always the best games to watch because its conference against conference.

Watching football on New Year’s Day is probably one of my favorite things for the entire year. It puts everything in perspective for me. As much as we might ignore it, sports dominates Alabama, especially Alabama and Auburn football.

The day starts off watching the Cotton Bowl, which kicks off at 10 a.m. along with the Outback Bowl. A little later on, the Gator Bowl kicks off and then the Capital One Bowl. That all happens before noon. Then you have the traditional Rose Bowl game right in the middle of the day, and then the first BCS bowl follows at night.

I like the way it used to be better than it is now. Instead of having one bowl game going on at a time from the Rose Bowl on, you had three major bowls occurring at one time to end the day. On NBC, you had the Orange Bowl. CBS would cover the Fiesta Bowl. The SEC champion would then play on ABC in the Sugar Bowl.

The best part about watching football this night is because you could switch back and forth between the games to keep up with it. When one went to a commercial break, then you could flip over and see another game.

This day was the reason why some TVs had the picture-in-picture function. That allowed you to watch two different games at once. It was exciting for me and my family to watch. The reason being is that one or even both of the other games could affect the national championship.

The one good thing about this bowl marathon is that it has been extended now. It starts earlier and ends later. Many of the games are bad, but there are always a few that make the bowl season all worth watching.

All of the bowls to this point were the appetizers. Now, it’s time for the main course.

– Brent Maze is the managing editor for The Clanton Advertiser. His column appears each Wednesday. He can be reached at brent.maze@clantonadvertiser.com.