Depending on your religion (or not), your answer to the question in the headline might vary.

But nobody can argue one of the highlights of the upcoming holiday season is gathering with family and friends.

With the pandemic situation in full force across the country, those gatherings might be few and far between, if they happen at all. But regardless of your family plans over the holidays, it’s important to remember to keep them a priority. And that includes before youth sports.

This holiday season the number of games and tournaments will be limited or not happen at all depending on where you live. But what most likely will be offered are different opportunities to participate in sports-related activities.

The opportunities might include a private lesson, a small group training session or a single game or match. It might even be a team activity not related to sports at all. 

In our family, while we try to take advantage of sports-related opportunities during the downtime of the holiday season, we never let them be a priority over family time. 

The other 11 months and 51 weeks of the year, a variety of youth sports, by our choice, pretty much dominate our lives. But from the last day of school in December to the first one in January, we put our family time first. Some of our plans are annual events, special trips or vacations, and some come up completely out of the blue. But no matter what they are and who else is involved, they become the priority.

This decision is sometimes readily accepted by our kids and other times not. They know that if there is an opportunity to participate in a sports-related activity and there isn’t a family conflict, we are all in. But they also know, if there is a family event, that’s our “all-in” place to be.

Best wishes for a happy, safe and healthy holiday season! 

Jon Buzby has been involved in and writing about youth sports for the past 30 years with perspectives as a parent, coach and board member. Jon is an award-winning writer and his latest book, “Coaching Kids Made Easier,” is available on Amazon. Send comments or future blog topics you'd like to see to JonBuzby@hotmail.com and follow him @YouthSportsBuzz on Twitter.