Superbowl Sunday is a big deal to me. I have hosted a number of parties and I have attended a number of parties. I’m a bit of a football nerd as I look forward to all of the festivities including - but not limited to - the week leading up to the game.

Few things I can guarantee will happen next week: on Media Day, Tom Brady and Bill Belichick will have to answer question after question about their relationship with Donald Trump and Roger Goodall. I can also guarantee at least one player from both teams will make a spectacle of themselves to grab some headlines and as sure as I am sitting here writing this blog I can all but guarantee someone will get arrested next week - could be a current player or it could be a former player (see Warren Sapp). Being that the game is in Houston at least one player from each team will be wearing a cowboy hat during media day as well.

Now I’m getting off topic.

The purpose of this blog is to give you the preeminent guide to hosting the perfect Super Bowl Party. It’s really not that hard and it can be done in three easy steps.

1.  Gluttony of Good Food
2.  Prop Bets for Everyone
3.  Good Friends  

Gluttony of Good Food

Look, if everything else goes wrong at your Superbowl Party, at the very least your guests should go home with a full belly of delicious food that will take years off your life.

The Superbowl is perfectly placed at the beginning of February - New Year's Resolutions have already been broken and it is a full month after Christmas so your stomach is ready for another binge day of eating. The Superbowl is like Thanksgiving or Christmas - it's not a time to get creative. Give the people what they want.

This means, chicken wings, nachos, chips, dip, pizza, mozza sticks, deep fried pickles, pulled pork, chilli, and anything that requires a deep fryer. It’s a good idea to have a veggie tray to add some colour to your feasting table but don’t go overboard with the healthy stuff.

Now the host isn’t responsible for providing all of this food. A good host will delegate and people coming to your party want to bring something anyways, so let them know what you’re providing and what else is needed.

Prop Bets for Everyone

This is something my friends and I have been doing for the past 6 years and it has really elevated our Superbowl parties.

The key to this is to make the bets for everyone and not just for the hardcore Football fan.

It will also require you to get a little creative.

A sharpie and a Bristol board are needed to create the board for your prop bets. You can have two kinds of bets: 50/50 and winner takes all.

We section the board off into squares and usually have about 10-15 bets for everyone to enjoy. Now since I’m not one to encourage gambling I suggest using chocolate loonies and having each bet cost 2 chocolate loonies. Guests are encouraged to stock up on chocolate at the bank or dollar store before the big game.

Some standard bets that should be included are how long will the national anthem last for, which player will score first (I recommend taking a kicker), half time score, final score, and who will win Superbowl MVP. Now what makes this fun is the creative bets. Creative bets can be how many times they will cut away to Roger Goodall, how many songs Lada Gaga will perform at half time, will Lady Gaga make a political statement, and how many times will the broadcast reference deflate gate and Tom Brady being suspended.

These bets should be discussed with your guests before the game and you should encourage bringing some creative ideas to make the experience fun for everyone. The great thing about this is it keeps the game interesting even in a blowout and it forces people to actually watch the game, which really is why you’re having the party in the first place.

Good Friends

This one is pretty self explanatory and it is the most crucial aspect to hosting a successful Superbowl Party - even if the game stinks, you lose money on the prop bets, and the food was only so-so if you’re hanging out with good friends for four hours, you are going to go home a happy camper.

Make sure you invite your good friends and leave the Debby Downers at home. Nothing is more annoying at a Superbowl party than someone who complains about Football during the entire party. Now is not the time to give your analysis on everything that is wrong with this flawed game. A Superbowl party is not the time to tell me why you would never let your child play this barbaric sport. I get it, Football is violent and is an extremely flawed game and while all of your arguments are valid, a party is not the time to be bringing them up. 

Seriously if find yourself doing that during Superbowl Sunday, shut up and eat some nachos.

Now if you follow these simple steps, I guarantee you will have a great Superbowl party. Did I miss anything? Let me know in the comment section below.                                  

Cheers

            I think I have this whole resolution thing figured out. First of all "New Year New Me" is garbage. It may be a new year but you are the same person so stop saying it, honestly your just embarrassing yourself at this point. If you were a jerk in 2016, chances are your going to be a jerk in 2017 and two weeks of being nice in January isn’t going to change anything. Change is one of the hardest things to accomplish in this life. It’s scary, it’s not something you can fully prepare for and for the most part people loathe it. Let’s face it we all do it, at least most of us do. It’s why I didn’t give George Stroumboulopoulos a chance to replace Ron McLean. All I saw was a skinny jeaned know it all and my mind was already made up before he even hosted one game. Clearly I was not alone in this as after two years Ron is back where he belongs and the hockey world is right again. So I think in order to really change your life, your lifestyle habits or really anything major about yourself, it has to come from something far more important than a date on the calendar.

            My life changed for the better about two years ago when my daughter was born. I will fully admit now that I was scared to death when my wife told me she was pregnant. Deep down I always knew I wanted to be a dad but I didn’t think I was ready for it yet. I still had video games to play, parties to attend and being a positive role model was not something I was ready for, or so I thought. It turns out parenthood was easier than I ever could have imagined. Don’t get me wrong it is incredibly tough and the horror stories you have heard from tired, stressed out parents are really real. Early morning wakeups suck, I literally fight with my daughter at least twice a day over pedestrian things like eating dinner or getting dressed in the morning but you know what I love every minute of it or at least almost every minute, I mean nobody enjoys changing a diaper, potty training or cleaning up puke. I’m certainly not a perfect father, not even close, in fact I am 100 percent certain there are some judgemental parents out there who would think I was a horrible parent because we do not feed our daughter all organic food and allow her to a watch a little bit of TV from time to time, but I love my daughter and was able to change my habits and lifestyle drastically to accommodate the most important person in my life. So how do you compare that to a date on the calendar? Now don’t get me wrong I still need to lose weight and one day I will or maybe I won’t, who knows what the future holds but I can tell you right now I won’t be finding the motivation because the calendar turned over.

            Don’t get me wrong if you quit smoking two years ago because of a resolution or lost the weight and kept it off, all the power to ya, I am genuinely happy for you but for me I found the whole resolution thing never worked out. I would love to hear some resolution success stories though, who knows maybe it will even inspire to join Dan Henry on a run one of these days.

He is going to smile and tell you he loves it but secretly, deep down, he will hate it.

Let’s face it, for the most part guys don’t love getting clothes for Christmas and they certainly don’t enjoy boring clothes like socks and ties. You would never buy your mom panty hose for Christmas, so why would you buy your dad socks. Maybe I’m a little bitter because one year that’s all I got.

Literally everyone in my family got me socks. Now to be fair I brought that on myself by not throwing out some old pairs with gigantic holes and never wearing matching pairs and clearly everyone noticed.

Another thing to remember is if dad says he doesn’t want a Christmas present and money is tight this time of year, he means it. This is not one of those, 'I-just-said-that-but-deep-down-I-want-a-gift.' No the gift of saving money is a gift in and of itself and any good father can appreciate that.

So without further ado, here are the top five presents to get Dad this holiday season:

                                                                  5. Good Beer

Listen if your dad drinks Lucky Lager or Pilnser, 9 times out of 10 he’s not doing it because he likes it – No, he is doing it because he is trying to save a few bucks. Don’t get me wrong; there are exceptions to this kind of rule, but for the most part it is true. The idea of giving gifts is to get something nice for your loved one that he would not normally get himself and that can include his favourite brew. Last year my sister got me the Harvest Grain Canadian whiskey that was so popular at the time, and it was easily the best gift I had received in a long time.

                                                                    4. Tools

You can never go wrong by getting dad a tool that he needs. Tools are essential for every household and nothing gives dad more of a sense of accomplishment than building something for his family. Don’t get me wrong - getting him to do it is a painstaking process but once it’s complete it is a great feeling and if he had the right tools it might be easier to accomplish. I remember when I was a kid my older sisters and brother chipped in their cash and bought an expensive answering machine for my Dad for Christmas. They asked me to join in and I declined because I knew there was a screw driver in his arsenal of tools that he was missing and I opted for that instead. Needless to say he hated the answering machine and loved the screw driver; in fact I have reason to believe he still uses it to this day.

                                                                   3. Anything Tech Based

If you have the means to spend a little bit on dad this holiday season, than a tech based gift will always go over well. Whether that is a tablet or a new phone, laptop - heck if you're just plain rich, no dad would ever be disappointed with a big screen TV. Caution: If dad asked you not to spend a lot of money on him this year, do not buy any of these gifts. Dad would much rather not get a lavish gift at Christmas than have to lend you money to pay your credit card bill in January.

                                                                   2. Guilt Free Day

This is probably my favourite gift idea and the key to it is guilt free. What I mean is whatever your dad is interested in or passionate about, give him that day guilt free. For me a perfect guilt free day would be 18 holes of golf or even better and cheaper, a guilt free day of watching football. Guilt free means you take care of the kids - if they are of age, they can join in the golf or the football too but if they are not when dad comes home, you tell them how great they were in his absence. If they were terrible, than you lie. You flat out lie and tell them how great they were. Dad should feel good about this day, he has earned it. (Now before you comment, I understand completely mom deserves this day to, heck she probably deserves a lot more of them, but this isn’t a mom blog it’s a dad blog) Your guilt free day can be for anything: if dad’s into cars, maybe it’s a day at a car show, or a NASCAR race with his buddies or whatever he wants to do for one day. Now dads get these days all the time, but how often do you get it guilt free.

                                                                   1. Get a Good Deal

No matter what you get Dad this year, make sure you get a good deal. The deal can be a gift itself. I know for a fact that if my family gets me something and I know they got it half off, that makes me feel that much better. Being a parent is a lot of responsibility and Christmas can be stressful with the finances so if there is anyone in the family who would be happy to not have a fuss made over them, it’s Dad.

This is just my opinion; if you disagree I would love to hear from you. Comment below on what gifts I missed or which ones you think I am way off base on.

I'm that guy that cringes when we play Christmas music before December 15th. I'm that guy that will re-gift those crummy socks you gave me and I'm that guy that doesn't wrap presents, I simply place an item in a bag without the tissue paper so you can clearly see what I got you. I lived a great scrooge like existence for years, free of scrutiny and my family was very supportive of my scroogeness. 

Things changed for me when I met my wife who is a complete and total sucker for Christmas. She loves the holidays and has gotten me to change my ways a bit. Another big change happened almost 2 years ago around Christmas time with the birth of my daughter. After seeing her face when she got to decorate the Christmas tree this year, I knew that I was going to become a Christmas guy. 

Since my wife and I starting dating she has insisted on watching Christmas movies during the month of December. I have consumed a lot of them over the years and have actually found some that we're quite tolerable, dare I say even good. So here you have it the top five Christmas movies for the scrooge in your life. 

5. CHRISTMAS WITH THE KRANKS 

Full disclosure here, I am a huge Dan Aykroyd fan. To steal a line from Kevin Smith, I think Dan Aykroyd could of played the shark in Jaws, that's how good of an actor he is. If this was my top 5 movies of all time list the Great Outdoors with John Candy and Dan Ayrkoyd would crack the top 3. Aykroyd doesn't get top billing in this movie but I firmly believe he is the star and emerges as the hero in this fun Christmas story based off the novel from John Grisham. This movie is full of cheesy Christmas good cheer, it also highlights everything that is wrong with Christmas before the typical redeeming feel good ending. I recommend this movie for the entire family. 

4. Bad Santa

I feel like this one is pretty self explanatory and the perfect movie for scrooges and Christmas lovers alike. Recommended for adults only. 

3. HOME ALONE 

Home Alone is just a great movie. As someone who was born in the 80's I am a complete sucker for John Hughes films and this certainly is right up there as one of his best. Home Alone is must watch viewing at our home for the holidays and it still cracks me up every time Joe Pesci lights his head on fire. It's also fun to watch this movie now and count how many times Burt and Marv should have died. This is a must watch for the entire family. 

2. SCROOGED 

This is my favourite adaptation of the classic Charles Dickens novel A Christmas Carol. Several movies and tv specials have been done on the Christmas Carol and with all due respect to the Muppets, this one takes the cake. Also it has Bill Murray and similar to Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray could play the Shark in Jaws and pull it off. Recommended for most of the family. (Some of the younger children may get a little scared) 

1. DIE HARD

First of all yes Die Hard is a Christmas movie. In fact it is the greatest Christmas movie of all time. Die Hard has everything you would want in a Christmas movie. It is an action packed thrill ride full of quotable one liners that put Arnold and Stallone to shame. This is my all time favourite Christmas movie. Full Dislosure: I didn't consider Die Hard a Christmas movie until my wife insisted we watch about 3 Christmas movies a week during the month of December. So remembers fellas, the next time she says let's watch a Christmas movie tonight, let her know you have a great one in mind. Recommended for the entire family. (Yes there is graphic violence and bad language but I wouldn't want to deprive any living person from watching this cinematic masterpiece)