Best Christmas Ever!

The best part is your brother laughing in the background, Puck.

I don’t recall any bad Christmases, but the one that stands out for me was the year Tritoch and I got an NES. At this point, the SNES had just come out, and I had been begging my parents for a video game system for years. Every year at school, we’d go around in a circle at school naming off what we wanted/what we got for Christmas, and every year I’d listen to all the boys say “Nintendo!” or “Sega Genesis!” and get a little more disappointed. When I’d ask my mom for an NES, the answer was always, “You’ve got an Apple IIc, you don’t need another video game system.” At this point I’d given up and stopped asking, so when I saw a big box under the tree with both Tritoch’s and my name on it (we’re 8 years apart, so it was hard to get a gift for both of us as kids), I was befuddled. That Christmas morning was the most surprised I’ve probably been at Christmas, and I spent hours in the days that followed playing Mario Bros., Mario 2 and Tetris.

My dad told me years later that Mom wanted to get us a really expensive, surprising present because it was the year she was diagnosed with cancer, and she wasn’t sure how many more Christmases we’d have together. I’ve still got that NES set up in my apartment today.

Jam it back in, in the dark.