Hello to all 3 readers of Sniffles' & David's blog.
In order to bring credibility to this blog, I wanted to contribute my writing skill and opinions.
This Christmas season has been rather sobering for me. The days of asking Santa for the exciting new toy or next greatest thing have long been gone, but at least I knew how to keep it interesting. As many of you know, I recently moved into a one bedroom apartment . This Christmas the headliners on my Christmas List was a vacuum, work shirts, and dress socks. If that isn't adulthood smacking you in the face I don't know what is. These are the things you saw Dad get from Santa and he would legitimately excited about it. I would like to reminisce to a better time and give you my top 10 Christmas gifts that have come out in our lifetime.
 |
| Family Guy, Season 1 |
Family Guy Season 1 may seem odd to be on this list because you may think Family Guy jokes are tired. When season 1 came out on DVD we were approaching the age of understanding the jokes and finding it hilarious. You would go to school, be talking to friends and hear Family Guy quotes over and over again. The influx of DVD sales is what made the last decade of Sunday Prime time programming for the animated franchise. It made the reboot of Family Guy a must watch event thanks to our age demographic.
 |
| Razor Scooter |
The Razor Scooter was envied by everyone who had a cheaper knockoff, or God forbid had to share with siblings. I am not the biggest fan of the Razor Scooter. It actually made travel more difficult, and doing tricks was limited to whatever the equivalent was to skateboarding's Ollie. But it was still a form of transportation, regardless how limited it was, Christmas morning was made 10 times better the second you went outside and took it for its maiden voyage on the sidewalk.
 |
| Caught wearing the headphones they gave you = Social Suicide |
Every year was the year you'd think "I'm gonna ask for an even better Disc-man than last year and now it won't break while I'm listening to my Limp Bizkit in the car with mom and dad." The disc-man was from and ancient age when we still bought CD's and had the binders filled with everything from Hanson's Mmmbop to Nelly's Country Grammar. They would skip every time the school bus hit a bump and require batteries every other day. The shelf life on many of these were not very long. It would not be an exaggeration for me to say that I had used up to 5 of these throughout my pre-teen years. Unfortunately it was our only option to listen to The Thong Song, Bye Bye Bye, Oops I Did it Again, and the other anthems of our youth.
 |
| These parents can afford all these products but not an inch of wrapping paper |
Insert Apple product here. Each year Apple has found a way to make us believe that we need what they're selling. The iPod Mini was something I couldn't stop bitching and complaining about freshman year of high school. As a salesman, I have to hand it to them, they have made unnecessary luxury an absolute necessity to most of the western world. I find it very hypocritical that I'm writing this from my iPhone, but everyone has asked for an Apple product that at some point or another you are not using anymore.
6. The New Hit Movie
It could have been the Lion King when we were very young or Inception or the Dark Knight when we were older but someone in the family always got a movie every Christmas without fail. Why? So our parents would get 2 hours of us shutting the hell up and stop complaining that our older brother or sister wouldn't let us play with their gift that is much cooler than the pile of stuff you received this morning. Our parents would basically give us an IV of candy and sweets all day and then put this movie on and hope to God we fall asleep halfway through it. This was a gift to themselves not to us.
 |
| We can only wish to be as cool as this guy |
5. Nerf Guns
For Secret Santa this year I received a Nerf gun and proceeded to do exactly what I did as a child. I shot everyone in the room for no apparent reason and lost 1/4 of the bullets in the first 15 minutes. The Nerf ad campaigns always had kids playing in an abandoned warehouse in a totally organized game with the bullets moving fast enough to pierce the skin. The reality of the Nerf gun was that no one else had an empty warehouse to play in and no ones Nerf gun fired as rapidly as the commercial. The toys usefulness was fleeting and eventually was used as a blunt object to use on someone or inevitably part of the Halloween costume years later. Even though all of these statements could be true, there was an unlimited amount of fun in running around the house pretending you're saving the world.
 |
| Do what I say or I'm not cleaning up your poop. |
This was the present that kids without pets demanded. This wasn't a request from Santa. This was "I'll put laxatives in your milk next year you bearded asshole if I don't get this little egg shaped fake pet." It did everything. It would hatch, eat, poop and die. It was the same thing as a real pet without the smell and undying love. We would name them and mourn their passing every other week. They were great for both boys and girls until Digimon came out. Any boy still playing with a Tamagotchi at that point was called the one name that always meant war growing up "Gaylord."
 |
| You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.
3. Pokemon Red and Blue version.
This divided an entire generation. Unless you were a spoiled a-hole you only had one version. I was a Red lad and my older brother was a Blue boy. It was a competition the entire ride up to Nana's house for Christmas.
"I got a Caterpree!"
"Just caught a Pidgey"
"My Charmander just learned Flame Spit"
"My Squirtle has had water gun for like 2 hours, loser."
If I were my parents I would have given us booze to make us go to sleep. Little did we know that the Blues and the Reds had to unite to trade Pokemon to fill the Pokedex. This game literally was an example of the haves and have-nots. Kids with the most Pokemon also tended to have more invites to sleep overs and play dates just to trade with them. My older brother, who would never associate with me and my friends, would be crashing my sleepovers trying to trade Kadabra to have it evolve into Alakazam. This gift lasted for a very long time and would not mind getting it all over again for Christmas this year.
 |
Even as a boy there was a status symbol that could make you the envy of the neighborhood. Now it's cars, back then it was your bike. Receiving a bike for Christmas was always the last gift you opened because it was either in another room or locked in the garage. It would have been insulting to a piece of machinery of this magnitude to put it under the tree with the other presents. This vehicle of pure unadulterated bliss meant independence. The world was immediately smaller and larger at the same time. Regardless of the weather you ran to the sidewalk hopped on that sucker and took it for a spin.
 |
| Sooo, who gets to hold the 5th & 6th controller while we all play? |
The Nintendo 64 was by far the greatest Christmas gift you could have ever received. Nowadays video games are riddled with new maps and downloadable content asking you to put more money into a game to get the full experience. Back in the 90's, you got N64 with 2 controllers and sometimes with relevant games for the time. Days were filled with red, green and blue shells racing with you on the Rainbow Road. Rivalries were fed with the head to head nature of games meant to be played with your peers in person, not online. Nintendo 64 is still played today and the classic games have never been forgotten. Playstation and Xbox both have relics of their forgotten time but N64 will still hold a special place in the hearts of the youth we have left behind.
Thanks for reading. This is not the end of the debate, it is just the beginning. Please comment if
you agree, disagree, or think I should stop writing all together. Merry Christmas!
Tim
No comments:
Post a Comment