Until recently, gaming on Christmas Day has usually been a solitary affair: I receive the game or console of my choice, I disappear for a few hours to my room, join in on the Christmas dinner, then disappear again. It may have been unsociable, but I was happy. However, in the past couple of years has seen this tradition been shunted in favour of more sociable gaming activities. With Nintendo aiming to get the whole family gaming, everyone from my little sister to my granddad has been getting in on the action.
The seeds for this movement can be traced back to Christmas 1997, with the arrival of the Nintendo 64. Instead of focusing my time on the single player games like Super Mario 64, my cousin and I would spend hours on Lylat Wars, a game that we still play to this day. On top of this, my mother's addiction to Mario Kart 64 saw me having to hide the game in order to enjoy Super Mario in peace.
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This phenomenon returned on Christmas 2006, when a Wii-shaped box found its way under my tree. Along with Wii Sports I received Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and I was looking forward to a marathon session in Hyrule that evening. This plan was soon shattered when my mother wanted to try out "that tennis game" she'd heard about. What I assumed would be a five-minute game turned into a manic hour-long tournament, culminating in an epic face-off against my own grandmother (which I lost).
Guitar Hero: World Tour was the next game that caught my family's attention. Featuring a diverse song-list and the ability to play drums or sing, it managed to cater for everyone. It also taught me two valuable things: My little sister is a whiz with the plastic guitar, and there is nothing funnier than listening to your dad trying to wail out Paramore's "Misery Business".
This year saw Trivial Pursuit dominate Christmas Day at my house. Essentially the board game minus the easily lost plastic, it boasted the original game plus some party modes. Mixing my family's love for competition and useless trivia, it provided the platform for claiming superiority over family members. Terrific fun.
Those are my favourite memories of family gaming at Christmas. Do you have any memories? Or do you prefer to spend your Christmas gaming alone?
