A holiday tradition

Our family traditions are really much more about food and people, and boredom, than the religious stuff. One such tradition has been going strong in my family since 1986, when my cousins and I (all a year apart in age) got our first Nintendo systems:



The other half of the tradition is, of course, snarfing down as much chex mix as possible, to the exclusion even of regular meals. (Christmas cookies just don't do it for me; I'm a salty kind of girl).

It's all a great exercise in nostalgia and crunchy goodness, as my two cousins and I regress back to being 10 and fighting and being silly and competing with each other on a game system so old we need masking tape to hold the cords on the controllers and jimmy the cartridges in with paper clips. It's a powerful reminder of why you shouldn't throw out certain things just because they're outdated, or they mostly don't work any more.

Since getting the Nintendos we've had them break and had various other iterations of game systems come and go from the household, have had fascinations (always soon dropped) with computer games, and had a whole other generation of kids get born and grow up learning to play Metroid and Mega Man under the tutelage of us cousins.

So I just wanted to wish everyone out there happy holidays and remind everyone of the true meaning of Christmas: I've got to go beat Kevin's ass at Joust.