Do any of you remember Christmas clubs? I’m not sure if banks still have them, but I don’t know why they wouldn’t offer another way to keep your money and pay you very little for that privilege. Christmas clubs began during the Great Depression so that bank customers would set aside a given amount of money each week so they would have some to spend at Christmas time.
My first Christmas club was a whopping $12.50. I would put aside $0.25 every week (I could afford it because I had my own business – a newspaper route) and receive a check from the bank the first week of December for $12.50. My younger sister also had a similar account except that she was subsidized by my parents (which didn’t really seem fair since I worked for my December windfall). I’m not sure what my youngest sister or older brother did for Christmas money, but I sure do not remember any significant gifts coming my way from those two sources.
After receiving our checks, my sister and I would get on the local bus and head downtown to buy gifts for the five members of the family (three siblings and mom and dad). Do the math – that’s $2.50 for each one. I assume this is where the phrase “It’s the thought that counts” was originated. The bigger problem, however, was that my sister always found something SHE liked while we were shopping. She would always make her first purchase a gift for, you guessed it, HERSELF.
It was at that point that her shopping dilemma would rise up – she had about $2.50 left to buy five gifts. She knew I had money – heck, I was an entrepreneur. How could I refuse her? She would always come home with a gift for everyone and the best gift for herself. I didn’t like it, but I did it.
This is a long introduction to the main topic – what kind of a Christmas “club” might a top athlete have at their gift-giving disposal? I decided to look at the highest-paid sports figures of the year and imagined what they might spend on each person on their list. I’ll use 25 people to buy for as the cost basis and one day’s pay as the available amount of money (in essence, their Christmas club). And I will use the 25 highest-paid athletes as the gift givers.
The athletes fell into the following categories: one boxer, three tennis players, three race car drivers, three NBA players, four golfers, five soccer players, and six NFL players. Their annual incomes ranged from $35.9 million to $88 million. The average yearly earnings for those 25 athletes were $50 million a year. If you divide that number by 365 days, they make $136,986.30 per day or $45,662 per hour. I’m thinking for their list of 25 people, some nice gifts are on the way. On average, their Christmas club would allow them to spend almost $5500 per gift.
Now, I figure I have spent a great deal of my life working with and getting along with athletes. I’m wondering if I could just convince one of them to let me take them “downtown” to do some Christmas shopping. I think I remember my sister’s ploy. Plead poverty. Get them to financially help me make some wonderful purchases. It worked on me for years. Perhaps, it would work on them.
Heck, I would even buy my sister a nice gift. After all, that’s the Christmas spirit.
ABOVE THE EARS (SOME MUSINGS)
- Who is the best team in the NFL at the moment – New England or Dallas? Might it be Oakland or the Giants? Or are Seattle or Pittsburgh sleepers? No pro sport does the post season any better. The playoff scenarios are mind-boggling and maintain interest to the very end of the season.
- Eagles’ fans can moan all they want about their coach, their quarterback, and the defensive secondary, but no one deserves more criticism than Nelson Agholor. He is a wide receiver who does not receive. In this past Sunday’s game against the Ravens, he caught one pass, dropped a few, never fielded a punt as a punt receiver, and never got the one-yard necessary for a very important first down because of a poor decision. He did receive $14.5 million as part of a four-year deal with the Eagles. I’m sure he RECEIVES that money.
- The Roundball JAMboree held at Allen High School on Sunday was a huge success. The event was scheduled to raise money for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and honor Mike Schneider for his service to Lehigh Valley athletics. Mike is afflicted with Parkinson’s. Our local teams split the four games with Parkland and Allen winning while Liberty and Whitehall were defeated.
- RCN-TV finishes up the year with Emmaus at Parkland and Nazareth at Whitehall on Tuesday night beginning at 7:00pm and Whitehall at Parkland on Thursday at 7:00pm. It was another great year for Lehigh valley sports.
- This is my last blog until after the New Year so I want to wish all of you a very happy holiday and thank you for spending time with the RCN-TV team this past year.
Gary’s Guesses: NFL Picks – (Last week – 12-4; Overall – 140-83-2 – 63%)
Week Sixteen
GIANTS
WASHINGTON
BUFFALO
TAMPA BAY
ATLANTA
GREEN BAY
NEW ENGLAND
TENNESSEE
SAN DIEGO
OAKLAND
SAN FRANCISCO
SEATTLE
HOUSTON
PITTSBURGH
KANSAS CITY
DALLAS
