As people of deep faith, retired NFL star Benjamin Watson and his wife Kirsten know that Christmas is about much more than tinsel, tunes, and turkey. Like a 21st-century version of the eponymous family at the center of the 1970s TV series “The Waltons”—who, like the Watsons, raised four boys and three girls and likewise built their values around God—the couple understand that a well-functioning family is built on a strong, loving relationship between husband and wife as well as parent and child.
At the Watsons’ new home in Fayetteville, a small town south of Atlanta, Georgia, there’s special reason to celebrate this year as father, mother, and the kids, ages 2 to 12, settle into the first home they’ve ever owned. That’s because Benjamin, the former tight end and 2005 Super Bowl champion who played for the New England Patriots, Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Ravens, and New Orleans Saints, now has firm roots after hopscotching across the country.
