A 30-year tradition continued Sunday for Butch and Roberta Bernhardt, who along with their friends and family excitedly watched from their home as the Seattle Seahawks played in another Super Bowl.
The Vancouver couple have hosted a Super Bowl party at their house in the Image neighborhood since 1986. It started small with just three couples, but the Bernhardt home was packed on Sunday with about 50 to 60 people. Guests were met with three different viewing rooms, popcorn and hot dog machines, football-themed contests, a photo booth and home brew on tap.
“It’s an opportunity to just get together and spend the day mindlessly screaming at a box of lights,” Butch joked.
The Seahawks didn’t win, but for Butch and Roberta Bernhardt the party is about more than football. “It’s about friends, family and fun,” Roberta said.
And food, judging from the party spread, which included bacon dipped in chocolate, a football-shaped plate of brownies, bacon-wrapped Little Smokies, and bowl full of Skittles — a nod to Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch, Roberta said.
Roberta’s brother-in-law, Guy Jarrell of Battle Ground, sat behind a bar in the viewing room in the garage and served up his home-brewed pumpkin ale and Russian imperial stout.
“It’s a chance to wear your buffet pants and eat junk,” Roberta told her friends.
During the highs and lows of the game, the first cheers or groans could be heard from the garage, where the game was broadcast with an antenna. About two seconds later, the rest of the party, which was watching the game on cable, got to see what all the commotion was about. The cable was a couple of seconds behind, Butch explained.
Either way, it appeared that everyone at the party was cheering on the Seahawks.
“My husband actually can’t stand the Patriots,” said partygoer Sheri Morris, and “I’m a Seahawks fan through and through.”
Morris and her husband drove up to the Bernhardts’ house from their home in Eugene, Ore., on Saturday night. They’ve been attending Super Bowl parties at the Bernhardt’s since the 1980s.
“My husband and Butch have been friends since they were little kids,” Morris said. “We try to reserve every couple of years to come up and see our friends” during the Super Bowl.
Butch said sometimes he looks out over the crowd at his Super Bowl parties and is reminded of the final scene in the classic Christmas movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” in which all of George Bailey’s friends crowd into his house. Bailey’s brother calls him the richest man in town because he has so many friends.
“That’s worth more than money,” Butch said.
