Christmas Fun

It's hard to believe it's already the beginning of December. Christmas will be here before you know it. Anybody have any Christmas stories to tell?

I have one....

This happened back in 1978 I think. I was 8 years old and my brother was 12. Early Christmas morning(it was still pitch black out) I woke up to use the bathroom. After taking care of business, I wanted to sneak downstairs to see the loot underneath the Christmas tree.....I think I might've still believed in Santa Claus at the time. Anyway, I got about 1/3 of the way down the steps and I saw the street light reflect off someone's glasses. Well I panicked and went back into the room I shared with my brother. I woke him up and told him what I saw. So he went to the top of the stairs and looked down and saw the same thing.....there was someone in our living room!
We went back to our room, wondering what to do (it never even crossed our minds to wake up Mom and Dad...duuh!) So, he decided to just walk down the steps and turn a light on to see who it was. So we started walking slowly down the steps and maybe about halfway down, the living room light went on and here it was our older brother! LOL. He took a picture of us as we were walking down the steps. Scared the you know what out of us! But it was still fun.
By that time, it was starting to get light outside. We woke up our parents and our sister sometime right after that.

By the way, I LOVE fruitcake! My sister made fruitcake a few years ago and I remember I took a pretty big piece of it and ate it while I drove out to my brother's house to watch football. By the time I got to his house, I had a nice buzz going from all of the alcohol she put in it. LOL

First Christmas gift I remember receiving that wasn't clothing...




I used to pull the covers over my head at night, plug my dad's single earpiece headphone (with full plastic thingy to wrap around your whole ear), and play after my bedtime. I was 6 (1980).....always the rule-breaker. I still tell people that this very game taught me how to multiply and divide by 7's. All you had to do was ask the 6 year old how many touchdowns equaled 63 points, and he'd say 9 super fast. Didn't learn 2 times 5 until 3rd grade......just didn't see the point if it wasn't divisible by 7.

Next year, though, my little brother and I scored BIG TIME!! Santa brought...errrr bought....this



We tried and tried to play the thing, but dad and grandpa couldn't figure out how to hook the thing up. And, the tv they chose was in the basement, had rabbit ears, and took FOREVER to warm up. Once finally hooked up correctly, dad and grandpa had to "test" it out for about 2 hours. They had to play space invaders and got hooked.

Oh, and the next Easter, I asked for Missle Command. I woke up the night before from a bad dream and found dad had moved the Atari back to his bedroom for the night so he could play MY NEW GAME!!!

But, of course, now I do it to my kids.

Hey.....my brother and I used to have one of those handheld football games. It wasn't the one you have though. Wow....the memories!
We also had a baseball, and hockey game.
And I LOVED the Atari 2600!!!! My brother and I had a ton of games for it! Asteroids was a great game but Adventure was by far the best!

The only liquid that soes into my fruitcake is bourbon (or irish whiskey) and eggs. House smells like a distillery when it cooks. Should I say it's a Wexford (Ireland) fruitcake.

But for present fun I gave my sister a box of rocks one year with a note that every girl needs her own set of rocks. The look on her face until she spotted the diamond earrings was priceless.

Kay

I remember the one year my brother got a small box of coal for Christmas. I forget who gave it to him but it was a joke.

..I think I might've still believed in Santa Claus at the time.

....wha, wha, wha, what? :scratch:


The Christmas we got our Atari was the greatest ever! Our family at the time actually lived in Texas, and we had come to Colorado to spend Christmas with our cousins. Low and behold, come Christmas morning, there it was. The Atari, in all its slendid glory!
Only, it wasn't ours...no, it was the cousins. There were 4 of us and 3 of them, so needless to say, it was the longest minutes of your life waiting for your chance to play. When you finally got your turn, those minutes went by in a flash! But with lots of parental influence, we made it work, and it was great.
On our journey home, there was for sure jealousy and grudges in our hearts, of the great misfortune bestowed upon us.
After a hainus, 18 hr drive back home, with multiple hair pullings, kickings, pokings, and the occasional backhand from the front seat. We finally got back home.
There was unloading, unpacking, bathing and eating to be done. Time for bed...we were mind spent. We had been running on high octane for weeks. We were done, my parents were done.
But wait, what is this? Momma coming out with another present.
I think there were tears shed by all in pure excitement and joy when we opened that last one! There it was. Our very own Atari!
And time for bed.

Yeah BBG, looking back that had to be one of the highlights. I will say that was the best Christmas ever as a kid. Everything about it was just Christmas. My uncle, and grandparents were still alive. We were all together. There was snow, cookies and treats. It was the perfect Christmas.
Of course now, with my own kids, everyone of them is special, and just looking at them breaks your heart just a little knowing how fast its all going.



...and oh yeah! Defender and Asteroids ruled!!!!

I would LOVE to sit down and play some of those classic Atari games! I wonder how big my "carbon footprint" was at the time I was heavily into those games.

On another note.....

I was known as a "Christmas Alcoholic" when I was a kid. Every family Christmas party, my Mom would make me a Sloe Gin. She would take a glass of ginger ale or sprite and add just enough Sloe Gin to give it some red color. I thought I was COOL!

Mine was a bit of creme de menth over ice cream



Kay

My family used to take pictures at every Christmas party. I would LOVE to find those pictures and post a few of them here.

I didn't get to play a lot of Asteroids until I got to college (1992) and we had an antique in the basement. Holy cow the hours wasted trying to "flip" the score. That one and Galaga always get me to this day. If I see one somewhere while travelling the kids know "it's gonna be awhile."

I used to play Pac-Man in a roadside truck stop called BETO Junction in Kansas on our way up to KU football games. Haha, often times Pac-Man was the highlight of the weekend if you get my drift about KU football. IF you are a map person, BETO is at the intersection of US75 and I-35 (the southern branch leaving KC). The acronym stands for four towns: Burlington to the south, Emporia to the west, Topeka to the north, and Ottawa to the east. Kind of cool, and it's still there. Anywhoo, I guess that's a bit off topic, though.

I was almost as excited the year my girlfriend bought me the Nintendo.

I was known as a "Christmas Alcoholic" when I was a kid. Every family Christmas party, my Mom would make me a Sloe Gin. She would take a glass of ginger ale or sprite and add just enough Sloe Gin to give it some red color. I thought I was COOL!

Lol! Can you imagine that nowadays? Haul ya off to the pokey!