Originally published on Trevor Trove on December 26, 2015
A common topic this time of year is “Favorite Christmas Gaming Memories.” I find this interesting because I personally have a somewhat hard time remembering specific games I got or played on Christmas. I almost always have memories of getting games and bringing my handheld devices to my grandmother’s house to play with between the flurry of opening presents and the relative calm of family dinner. And while I don’t remember the exact games I found myself playing on or around Christmas, I do have three distinct gaming-related memories to cover.
- Growing up, my parent’s loved hiding our big gift every year from us, leaving it behind as a “one last gift.” One of the most vivid example was sometime between the ages of 10 and 12 (I think). My sister and I woke early and tore through all the presents under the tree like we did every year. When finished, my parents said there was “one more thing” waiting for us in the other room. We headed out to our game room (named because that was where the big screen and video game consoles were) to find our brand new computer. This was a PC with Windows 95 on it and one of the new features this allowed for was the dynamic screen savers. My parents had programmed the screen saver to read “Merry Christmas Trevor and Jamie!!!” so we saw that text floating across the brand new monitor and lost our adolescent minds.
- I believe this next memory came on Christmas 2003. In December 2003, I moved out of the house to my first apartment at the end of my first semester of college. I had taked my PlayStation 2 and the Xbox I had won at my high school graduation with me. For Christmas, my sister took advantage of the $99 Gamecube offer to get me the system and a few games. So with that she rounded out my collection of that generation of consoles and cemented her place in my Christmas Gaming Memories.
- One of my memories of Christmas Future was made today. Shortly after Catherine and I started dating back in April, she mentioned that her brother worked in public relations for Xbox. When she asked that I come to Seattle with her for Christmas I was already it, but getting to meet him and talk about the industry with him was certainly an added bonus. A bonus on top of that was provided today when he gave me my Christmas gift today: the Xbox press bag people got for attending Gamescom this year. This included six Xbox t-shirts, some lanyards, and sunglasses, all in a nice Xbox backpack. As someone who spent most of 2015 sowing seeds to get into the industry, this gift – something only industry people got – was another highpoint in an already stellar year!
Merry Christmas! Here’s to 2016!
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