“Don't hug me. Go play with it!”

December 25, 2018 7:51 AM

The gift of gaming: the joys of getting a console for Christmas [The Guardian] “We all remember that one Christmas present we got as a kid. The one we’d begged our parents for all year, the one we’d looked up 100 times in the Argos catalogue or on Amazon, depending on our age … For many of us, that present was a games machine. Whether it was a ZX Spectrum or a PlayStation 2, the process of unpacking these technological marvels, getting our mums and dads to set them up, then finally playing with the whole family, was magical.”

BONUS: A Christmas YouTube Tradition: Tricking Kids With a Fake Console Gift [Kotaku]

“There's a Christmas morning video spreading over the Internet the past two days, in which a naughty boy gets the modern lump of coal: an empty box instead of a PlayStation. It looks outrageous. Remember, though, this is on YouTube. And this kind of prank has gone on there for years. The latest one has gone viral over the past couple of days in large part for its shamelessness. The victim, and he barely looks 10 years old, is told by his mom he got an empty box because of poor grades in school. His uncle, presumably the benefactor, pursues the upset boy into the apartment hallway, cackling with laughter. And worst of all, the entire thing is filmed vertically.”

posted by Fizz (35 comments total)

getting our mums and dads to set them up

And then the realization, maybe, years later, that all it required was putting a few cables in the right holes. They're color coded too, just like those toys you had as an infant/toddler, unless you had to do it by RF adapter. Then there was actual parental magic to be had.

Channel 3 for life!
posted by JoeXIII007 at 7:59 AM on December 25, 2018 [10 favorites]

I still remember the Christmas morning I opened up my Sega Genesis and put in Sonic the Hedgehog for the very first time. There was much screaming, running, and jumping for joy! :D
posted by Fizz at 8:01 AM on December 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

I was just digging through some old photos while visiting my parents and happened across these. I have a NES Classic on my wishlist too, although the real console is likely still hanging out in a closet here someplace.
posted by brentajones at 8:11 AM on December 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

We moved to "the country" when I was 10. My parents finally relented and got a horse for me as long as I took care of it. Friends, that was the most loved animal, ever. And, finally, for Christmas, Santa brought a saddle!

My dad had grown up on a farm but left it to my granddad to show me how to chinch the girth and such. It's my fondest memory of granddad.

There's always one special year if you're lucky and won the family lottery.
posted by mightshould at 8:11 AM on December 25, 2018 [13 favorites]

Christmas 1981. Intellivision. With Las Vegas Poker & Blackjack and Astrosmash!

Life was good.
posted by delfin at 8:40 AM on December 25, 2018 [9 favorites]

> [...] filmed vertically

Those fucking monsters!
posted by sourcequench at 8:50 AM on December 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

When we got a NES it was a more explicitly negotiated deal, because I had already become a devotee and snuck time on other people's sets as much as I could get away with over the course of the couple of years it had been out; my biodad out of state agreed to cover half the cost if me and one of my sisters fronted the other half from whatever we'd saved up from birthday cards and such over the course of a year or two. Was it a Christmas thing, or a birthday, or some arbitrary date? I have no memory.

But I do remember getting the thing, and opening it up, and setting it up (which I think I did myself because at that point I'd been behind other people's TVs to fiddle with them, move 'em from one room to another at someone's house, knew what to do with the RF switch etc) and it just being this apotheosis of all my wants and dreams at that moment in my like nine-year-old life. I don't remember if we had anything other than the packed in SMB/Duck Hunt cart, but that was enough and then some in the moment; SMB was still an object of mystery and wonder, even seeing that dark sky of World 3 was still a thrill, and holy shit we had a light gun too!

And in one of those memories you look back at through a thick subjective haze and try to sort the truth out of, I remember my parents, who had I think given in with some reservation to us having this thing in the living room, the only room with a TV, insisting that they get a turn on it fairly soon after it turned on. And me not really believing them, and not wanting to tear myself away. And them actually laying out a, hey, no, we're serious, you share or we're gonna get rid of the thing sort of deal. And that ultimatum absolutely gobsmacking and upsetting my adrenaline-rush, just-got-my-hands-ON-this-thing little brain. It felt like this immense power play at the time. But subjective haze; my parents trying to make it a family experience and also establish like any boundaries at all when they saw me getting all Gollum on this motherlode makes a practical kind of sense through the lens of adulthood retrospect even if they also maybe didn't completely stick the landing on it. In the moment, god, it was wrenching drama, a sudden third act twist of betrayal. I wanted to be playing Super Mario Bros until the end of time, and what fresh hell is this?

But after that it was a part of the household and my parents didn't take a continuing interest in playing with it, and boy howdy did I play the shit out of that thing. We, for sure, my siblings got at it too and a couple friends would come over too, but for all that it really was mostly me using the thing whenever I could.
posted by cortex at 8:52 AM on December 25, 2018 [14 favorites]

Commodore 64 in the early 80s was my favorite Xmas present ever. I only had a tape drive for the first 9 months, then I got a floppy drive (a big deal back then.)
posted by porn in the woods at 8:54 AM on December 25, 2018 [13 favorites]

I asked for an Atari and got an Atari 5200...I didn't even know it existed. I think it could do 8 colors not just 4. What a graphical powerhouse lol. So much Ms. Pac-man...
posted by sexyrobot at 9:00 AM on December 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

Atari 2600 circa 1979! Channel 3 was definitely the best!
posted by TedW at 9:02 AM on December 25, 2018 [7 favorites]

Never a nintendo, but once a commodore 64 as it was perceived by my parents to have had more educational value. My father and I sat in mutual disappointment out how far the graphics for Outrun were from the arcade version, though we did not speak of it with each other until years later.
posted by ominous_paws at 9:04 AM on December 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

I ruined Christmas in 1979 with an Atari 2600 gift. I was 7 years old.

The Atari was all I wanted. I started asking for one in Hallowe'en. My single Mom couldn't possibly afford it. We weren't poor, but all the money we had went to mortgage and school and we never had much extra for fun stuff. She told me there was no way she could buy it, it was $200, or about $800 in today's dollars, and by that age I already understood what that meant.

Early December my sister, my older should-have-been-wiser sister, tipped me off that our mother had bought me the Atari. That it would be my Christmas present. I didn't believe her, so she told me where it was hidden. In a gross dusty back closet in the garage. So when Mom wasn't home I snuck into the closet and very, very carefully peaked and there was the Atari under some musty old polyester blanket.

I kept the secret for about three days. But I couldn't contain myself. It was already bought and in the house! Even if Christmas was weeks away, surely I could go ahead and have it now and play it now? What would be the harm? So by my 7 year old logic I told my Mom I knew about the present. And informer her that since I knew about it, she might as well give it to me right then.

That was the second time I can remember my mother out right crying. The first time was two years earlier, when my father died. The third time was a few years later when I was 12 and so upset I told her I hated her and she'd ruined my life and honestly meant it in the moment.

But there in early December 1979 she burst into tears of anger and frustration because her big Christmas plan was ruined. She was so, so mad at me. Of course I couldn't have my present. In fact since I'd been so naughty I was getting no present at all. She was going to return the Atari and give me nothing.

Sure enough, I had no presents under the tree. A day or two before Christmas she relented, a couple of small boxes appeared. I tearfully asked what had happened to the Atari. "It's gone. I got you some underwear because, well, you need underwear anyway. You can open it on Christmas Day". I was no longer in a rush.

I felt so terrible. I knew how happy my mother was to have been able to buy that gift for me, how much it must have cost to have saved the money aside to be able to afford it. And then all that generosity and joy was ruined because I peeked at my presents.

So it was a pretty glum Christmas morning. I mean we had our stockings (with an orange in the toe), and candy, and nuts. There were a few more boxes under the tree for me. I'd picked out my presents for everyone and they were ready to give, but I didn't get much joy from that. I was just sad for my lost Atari.

Finally it came time to open presents. And my Mom handed me a small box, a cube, and told me to open it first. Inside was an Atari 2600 joystick! That confused the hell out of me. Then I opened the second box and it was a Combat cartridge. Then another joystick, and an RF adapter, and then finally my mother took pity on me and hauled the last box out from where it'd been hidden; the console itself, wrapped separately to hide what it was.

Best Christmas ever.
posted by Nelson at 9:27 AM on December 25, 2018 [46 favorites]

I got a Nintendo when I was five. I still remember it as my first conscious realization of the malleability of time perception. My dad and I fiddled with it until we got it all plugged in and ready to go around sunup on Christmas morning, and we decided we'd try Mario first and Duck Hunt afterward. Then suddenly Mom was telling us it was dinnertime and I was like, "But we haven't even gotten to the other half of the first game!"
posted by Scattercat at 9:28 AM on December 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

Choplifter! on a new Apple IIe with dual external 5¼" floppy disk drives (our first home PC).
posted by cenoxo at 9:34 AM on December 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

Whether it was a ZX Spectrum or a PlayStation 2

Intellivision! Old school represent!

(says the guy typing this on his Christmas surprise brand new laptop)
posted by nubs at 11:17 AM on December 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

I have kinda a parallel experience. We didn't have consoles in my house, but Christmas and Easter often meant playing nintendo with my cool older cousins at Aunts' and Uncles' houses. I remember sitting in my pajamas watching them play through Contra for 2 hours with the Konami Code. I also remember the Christmas we got our first PC, though. Encyclopedia's on CDROM's were pretty rad, dudes.

Also, I feel like this is a good place to bring up Child's Play, a charity that sets up sick kids with video games. I can only imagine how much more bearable being bed sick is with a good game to distract you and pass the time.
posted by es_de_bah at 11:38 AM on December 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

God, I’m old. A Horikawa tin robot was the most advanced thing I got for Christmas. I actually bought my parents a ‘console’ when I was in my twenties: you could only play Pong in black and white, but the miracle of controlling anything on the TV screen was enough back then. CGA? We would have killed for CGA.
posted by Segundus at 11:38 AM on December 25, 2018 [5 favorites]

For me it was a Gameboy Pocket along with a Donkey Kong cartridge. There was no way my parents were getting me a console in 90’s Poland, but that Gameboy was all I ever wanted it was the best Christmas ever.
posted by mit5urugi at 11:51 AM on December 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

USRobotics Courier v.Everything modem for me.

Successive firmware upgrades took it from 19.2kbps that Christmas to v.90 57.6kbps by the time we upgraded to a computer without an ISA bus. That was one heck of a modem, a great value for all the years it lasted, and it opened up my world immensely. I still have it in a box in the closet. I might put it in a picture frame someday.
posted by tss at 12:46 PM on December 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

heh I got this experience this year because my lovely boyfriend gave me a playstationVR! He actually gave it to me weeks ago because he couldn't wait! I was totally floored and super excited - we haven't had much time to play it yet, but as of today we both finally have time off and free time and we are going to play the shit out of that thing and eeeeeeee!
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 1:10 PM on December 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

heh I got this experience this year because my lovely boyfriend gave me a playstationVR!

Jealous that you get to play Beat Saber which looks to be one of the most entertaining games of all time!
posted by Fizz at 1:31 PM on December 25, 2018

We got a Pong game in the 70s, which I loved as a piece of hardware but I enjoyed playng it less and less as it became clear that I would never, ever win against my dad or my little sister. In the early 80s, it was ColecoVision with Ladybug and the exact same outcome.
posted by bonobothegreat at 2:13 PM on December 25, 2018

I would try to figure out how to get my kid a game console and, for the first hour or so, feign that the only game I had bought for it was Desert Bus.

This is why many are glad that I have not reproduced.
posted by delfin at 2:17 PM on December 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

It wasn't me, but my cousins got an Intellivision that Christmas of 1981, and we played NFL Football until our thumbs got blisters. I cried when it was time to go home. Ah, the good times.
posted by Sphinx at 3:02 PM on December 25, 2018

20 years ago I was unpacking Ocarina of Time. That was a good Christmas.

I noticed today a notification from Green Man Gaming that I could snap a free game while stocks lasted. Stocks had run out, but I noticed unexpectedly big discounts on Dragon Quest XI, Final Fantasy XII and FF XIII-2. And it's this sense of the unexpected that gave today a bit of Christmas magic.
posted by ersatz at 3:09 PM on December 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

We had the Grandstand 4600 one year - as endorsed by Kevin Keegan.

My favourite Christmas present of that era, however, was a Star Bird, which was flipping brilliant.
posted by pipeski at 3:10 PM on December 25, 2018

Some twenty odd years ago, my dad surprised me with a PS1 and the game I had been desperate to play - Final Fantasy VII. My dad was known for practical and conservative gifts, so this was manna from heaven - so precious and wonderful that I didn’t have the heart to tell him he hadn’t bought the memory card with it.

I played Final Fantasy VII with no save slots for months, leaving the game on (but unplugged) so as not to lose my place when I got to school. I actually got so good at it that I would at least get to the world map before dying. I finally got a memory card, but the experience of playing so carefully will never leave me.
posted by corb at 4:13 PM on December 25, 2018 [11 favorites]

We weren't allowed to have the TV on on Xmas morning so I read all the manuals front to back, which is where the Super Mario Bros manual tells you that King Koopa turned the citizens of the Mushroom Kingdom to bricks. So I would try to avoid smashing as many as I could while playing Once I saw you got points for destroying them I was pretty puzzled about why it would reward you for killing the people.
posted by Space Coyote at 4:37 PM on December 25, 2018 [9 favorites]

1983. Commodore 64.
It had a whole 64 KB of RAM and 16 colors!
posted by signal at 4:56 PM on December 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

Never got a console, but like signal I got a C64, and thanks to that I learned to code, and thanks to that (and luck and timing and privilege) I have a career in software, though I suck at SMB.

I have a console now, though.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:54 PM on December 25, 2018

We got Mega Man 2 and Contra with our NES (as well as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, regrettably) and looking back I just have to thank whoever informed my grandmother that oh yeah, these are going to turn out to be two of the best games of the decade.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:28 PM on December 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

Jealous that you get to play Beat Saber

yes that's the next game up after we finish Gris
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 11:57 PM on December 25, 2018

I remember bugging my folks for years to get me T.E.A.M.M.A.T.E., a "programmable electronic computer" that in retrospect looked like a combination of an oversized calculator and a electronic cash register (that should have been the first clue, but hey, I was young). I almost cried with joy when they finally broke down and got me one for Xmas. Alas, it turned out that it was such a POS (long story short, it wasn't nearly as "programmable" as we were led to believe) that I was actually glad when it broke and we were able to return it.

Needless to say the Intellivision was much more of a hit.
posted by gtrwolf at 8:51 AM on December 26, 2018

Bought my son a Switch this year. I love how the experience of building a bicycle on Christmas Eve has been replaced with updating software and downloading games on Christmas Eve.
posted by m@f at 4:31 PM on December 26, 2018

My nine-year-old has been saving up money all year to get a computer; we got her a cheap PC for Christmas and she flipped her lid. We got my seven-year-old a Switch. She hadn't been expecting or asking for it, and when she first opened it she wasn't quite sure how to react, but she has been exploring it and getting more and more enthusiastic about it just as I expected she would. It's been delightful to watch.
posted by nickmark at 7:58 AM on December 27, 2018 [1 favorite]