Are Video Games Part of Your Holiday Plans?

Plus, a story about how I used to "trick" my brother with our Christmas gifts to get more expensive video game consoles.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

The holidays, however you celebrate, are either approaching or blazing past. And I strongly suspect that for many of you, video games will be part of the holidays, whether it’s buying a gift for yourself or a child in your life, or using some of that precious free time to play that video game you simply haven’t had time for until now.

Crossplay itself will be quieter—but not silent!—over the next two weeks.

My question to you: how are video games going to be a part of your holidays? Do you have any fond memories of how video games were a part of your holidays growing up? What are you buying for your kids—or someone else’s kids—that you’re excited to see the reaction to? Please share your thoughts, stories, and predictions in the comments!

Personally, here are a few of my plans over the next few weeks:

• Play too many hours of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, which I’m enjoying so, so much. I’m about to leave the first area, and cannot wait to see what’s next.

• Try playing It Takes Two with my eight-year-old, because I’ve wanted to play it for years and it failed to captivate my wife’s attention. Please, little one. Help.

• Diving into the holiday level of Astro Bot, likely with my four-year-old by my side. In retrospect, I should have gotten her an Astro Bot plushie for Christmas.

• Beginning Silent Hill 2 in earnest, far and away my biggest regret of 2024.

If all I manage to do is play Indiana Jones and Astro Bot, though, I’ll be happy.

Talking about the holiday and video games, though, brings up a funny story.

The first video game console in our house was a machine that played variations of Pong. My mom liked Pong, so she bought us a machine that let them (and us) play Pong. At some point, an NES entered the home, but I cannot remember why, other than the NES was a cultural phenomenon, so, of course, you had to buy your child an NES…?

During those early years, my brother, who is two years younger than me, also liked video games. Many, many fond memories of playing various Mario games, the unfairly difficult Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Game, stomping the floor too loudly with a Track and Field mat, and others. But at the time, everyone liked games, because they were novel and new. It wasn’t until the SNES—and more specifically, role-playing games like Chrono Trigger—that, in the words of Wicked, something changed within me.

(Side note: My children woke me up last week to Defying Gravity blaring because I’d put the elf on a shelf on a light in our front area, and it kinda looked like he’s flying.)

Games did not get cheaper over time, and my brother’s interest in games changed over time, too. He still liked them. If you liked the NES, who wouldn’t like the SNES?? But like is different than love. Interest is different than hobby. To make the economics of buying a SNES and its associated expensive cartridges work, my parents were “bundling” our “big gift” for the holiday together. Thus, they could afford an SNES.

(Further complicating matters, my brother’s birthday is around the holidays, which meant he was routinely robbed of two “true” gift giving seasons.)

A few years later, this is also how I would pitch my brother on a PlayStation. The difference now was that my parents had made the combined big gift element of this explicit, and so my brother had to sign off on the bundling for it to work. (I don’t know if my brother still believed in Santa at the time, but I definitely did not. Either way, the fact that my parents were so transparent about the money remains funny.)

Photo by Nikita Kostrykin on Unsplash

I distinctly remember showing him screen shots of upcoming PlayStation games in the pages of EGM. Look at how Jumping Flash looks! Man, doesn’t Battle Arena Toshinden look neat? And holy hell, have you seen how realistic NFL GameDay is?

Ironically, the PlayStation is probably the machine my brother had some of the most fun with in the months after Christmas, thanks to games like Twisted Metal. (The sequel especially.) But he was tired of opening one big gift and watching cousins open a dozen smaller ones, and so from then on, I had to find my own path towards getting a fancy new video game machine. This is around the same time I started writing, so…!

Now, I’ve got too many video games. What a novel problem.

My thanks to everyone who has read and supported Crossplay in 2024. I have big plans for 2025, and hope to share some of my ideas for them with you very soon.

(Yes, I finally plan to pull the trigger on guides to parental controls. Stay tuned.)

I hope your holidays are relaxing, fun, and full of family time. See you next year!

Have a story idea? Want to share a tip? Got a funny parenting story? Drop Patrick an email.

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