Tailgating is Her Favorite Sport

The My Heart Beats Tailgate greeting card celebrates the best part of football—the tailgater.

The story on the back:
Football is her favorite sport. She loves everything about it - the crisp fall air, the camaraderie of the fans and all the spirit wear. She even knows the player's name whose number is on her jersey. She tries to go to all the home games and has her routine down to a system - starting with getting to the stadium hours in advance so that she can stake out the best parking spot. She tries to out-do herself every weekend with her spread of food, and she can even time when to fire up the grill for the post-game festivities by the sounds coming from the stadium. When someone asked if she had season tickets, she realized that she has been going to the stadium parking lot for years but has yet to watch a game. In retrospect, tailgating is her favorite sport. 

The story behind the story:
My husband graduated in the Class of ’87 from the United States Naval Academy. We met in the summer of 1987 and went to every home Navy football game. Back then you could go in and out of the stadium as much as you wanted to, so we’d buy 2 tickets for our whole group to share and take turns watching the game. But the highlight for me was always the time tailgating in the parking lot.

We continued this tradition of just tailgating when we had kids. We’d pile the kids, activities for them, food and drinks into the car and park in the stadium parking lot for a fun afternoon. Eventually they limited parking to season ticket holders, so we broke down and got those. But before each game, we’d still tailgate.

Now that we live on the West Coast, we gave up our season tickets. We still go back for a game every year.

Uses:

1. Invitation to a tailgate party.
2. Thank you for a tailgate party.
3. Container for football tickets.
4. Send to a mom of a football player.
5. Send to a friend from college or high school.
6. Send as a congratulations to a newly accepted student of a college with a football program.
7. Invitation to Superbowl Sunday party.
8. Thank you to a Superbowl Sunday party.
9. Thank you to a team mom for all the work she did.
10. Thank you to a coach.

Celebrate every day,
Kelly