The Christmas holiday period is an island of warmth and nostalgia in a bleak sea of winter (yes, I’m not a fan of these months), and any discerning video game fan will have plenty of core memory triggers associated with the season. From your first console, to those carefree happy cold winter days in your childhood spent staring at the TV or monitor trying to beat a specific game, or the anticipation for those epic Steam Winter Sales of yesteryear (before the big publishers sank their talons into the concept), we all remember something fond about the holidays.
Christmas was forever intertwined with our culture the moment video game consoles hit mainstream and became the present kids dreamed of.
Earliest memory
The very first time I remember video games tied up with Christmas was getting an original Game Boy off Father Christmas waaaay back in 1989. The retro handheld came with one bundled game cart: Tetris, which kept you busy for hours, and invaded your dreams if you played it too much.
Since then, the two things have been intrinsically bound together. New game carts from Father Christmas, plenty of free time and bad weather to indulge in whatever my current tipple was, family and friends grouped around a screen having some party fun. When I was a bit older, I remember bargaining with my parents to be able to get a Super Nintendo as a present for both my birthday and that year’s Christmas. The joy of firing up Super Mario World for the first time still sticks with me.
In the end, I think it’s your memories of the time that continue the magic of Christmas and video games.
Games you associate with Christmas
There are some games that have nothing Christmas-y about them, but they forever remain linked to the holiday season. The obvious answer would be any game set in the snow. From the Hoth mission in Rogue Squadron II, to discovering a cabin in the wilds of Skyrim, Lots of games feature the depths of winter and cosy hidey holes.
For me, the one that stands out the most is Jedi Outcast. It’s not even about the full game… I remember playing the demo off a magazine cover disc and feeling like a Jedi. There was also Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield, which I played for a good four years, so is deeply ingrained in a lot of my gaming memories generally.
Christmas-y games and maps
Back in the Wild West of the early internet, Macromedia Flash was a way to efficiently deliver simple interactive animations and games via a browser. The plug-in spawned a whole generation of iconic mini-games, with Elf Bowling a prime example. The winter of 1998 may have had Half-Life dominate the charts, but Elf Bowling’s irreverent humour and easy gameplay made it accessible to every corporate worker and parent in the Western hemisphere.
One enduring memory I have was the winter maps in Warcraft II. The Alliance buildings were these idyllic snow-covered structures, and the church even had it’s own little Christmas tree with twinkling multicoloured lights on one side! This is obviously bolstered by the many hours spent strategising over winter holidays, many multiplayer LAN sessions.
There was also the Christmas bonus update to the CoD4:MW multiplayer map ‘Crash’, called ‘Winter Crash’ which added snow to the level, as well as a sparkly Christmas tree and some spilled presents to the downed helicopter in the middle.
Both video games and Christmas can mean the same thing
Ultimately, when you boil them down, both Christmas and video games offer very similar experiences: having fun with people you care about. Even single player games are a shared experience… we all play through and share stories.
That’s partly why they are so linked together.
What does a video game Christmas mean to you?
What are your experiences with video games at Christmas time? Did you have a first console you remember feverishly opening and setting up? Did you play games as a family, all laughing and screaming for first place?
