The Christmas/Xmas/Hannukah/Saturnalia/BUY OUR STUFF Season

So I worked on Christmas day for the first time. I was mostly having a pretty nice shift, then about an hour before the end of my day I went on facebook while peeing . . . and saw that my nan had changed her profile picture to a black square and both my aunties had replaced their profile and cover photos with pictures of my grandad. My heart sank.

I kept up a smile through my final lesson, went to the nice bench by the 7/11 where I like to use wifi, and skyped my family. Everyone was fine, we had a nice christmassy chat. After they hung up, I messaged mum and she hadn't heard anythign about grandad. So finally, I called my nan . . . and grandad was fine, alive and well. My aunties are both visiting and I guess they were both just childishly competing to see who could be best daughter? Oh, and my nan's brother died a while back, hence the black profile, which is sad of course but I didn't really know him.

Emotional rollercoaster!

Baubleadeer wrote:

Presume you'll be exchanging plenty of messages with your lady?

Of course. And don't take my previous message the wrong way - I watch cheesy Christmas movies looking for some tears so I was happy.  

The Balls man wrote:

Is KFC over there better than ours?

Ridiculously so.

Ooft. Still, glad it all ended well!

We're watching Muppets' Christmas Carol, following some donkey feeding and lots of family Smash. It's been a good day thus far!

Christ, not the emotional turmoil you need on Christmas Day there, Drunka!

Did everyone get some nice gifts for Christmas?

My backlog continues to swell to gargantuan proportions as I received for PS4 the Spyro Reignited Trilogy and SCVI, alongside Let's Go, Pikachu! and Diablo III for the Switch. I'm also now the proud owner of a capture card - looking forward to tinkering with that - amongst the usual assortment of clothes and chocolate.

Aye, apart from Smash I got:

• A Pro Controller, giving me 8 controllers and allowing a potential game of 8-player Smash;
  
• A bluetooth speaker for parties;
  
• Quince gin;
  
• Chocolate up the wazoo;
  
• A big fluffy manatee plush from The Lady.

A good haul without being astonishing, but frankly I could've got Smash and the Pro and been happy.

Jay you need to burn some of those games before you can start playing them.

I'll get there slowly but surely! I just need to resist buying anything outside of the biggest releases next year... should be easy, right? Right?

Hope everyone had a good day

I got


I'm yet to try the PS1 Classic or Starlink, most of the other things part from SMASH were stocking filler type things as I only asked for those three things and cash which I did get £415 though £30 of that I got a week ago (from my godfather) and spent way before today on things like food.

I plan to get a PSVR maybe tomorrow which will make my backlog even bigger, thankfully no new games I want till Jan 11th.

I got some small presents and eshop vouchers- no point mailing anything else until i know whether ill be flying it all home in a month or two.

Bit of an odd one for me, was meant to be going to my Dad's restaurant for dinner with my Mum & Grandmother, but when we got her there she was really spacey and kept falling over and dropping things, so we dragged her back out of the restaurant and to hospital. Ended up eating some garlic bread in the hospital car park as my Christmas dinner
Present-wise I've just been getting kitchen stuff for my new home (if I can ever get around to finding one...)

Is your mum/grandma okay Andy? Garlic bread's nice though.

Yeah Grandma is in hospital now, likely just a fever, it's happened a few times before, just very inconvenient on Christmas

Okay, glad to hear it. Yes, not the ideal Christmas meal!

I got red dead 2, some vouchers, lots of chocolate and amr potato head. First Christmas since I lived in America that I've not seen my family though, been staying at my girlfriends instead but Newcastle to Somerset is a 9 hour coach.

I did wonder what had happened when I saw that KH2 tweet you put out, Andy. Hope your grandma is doing alright now.

Muss: Ah, enjoy RDR2! If we ever go back to RDO, we'll need to get you involved with our outlaw fun.

Apart from the usual money which I had already used to get some games early, I got:

2 Legend of Zelda T shirts
1 Mario Kart T shirt
A beard care kit (with a proper beard comb which I've been meaning to get for a while)
Mario heat changing mug
A Celtic FC duvet set
And last but not least some free hugs (which he kept calling presents) from my 8 year old nephew who was up visiting today.

Happy with that.

Jay wrote:

Muss: Ah, enjoy RDR2! If we ever go back to RDO, we'll need to get you involved with our outlaw fun.

Aye I'll be up for that though it might be best once it's fully out of beta as there isn't too much content we haven't played right now.

Gaming-shirts are always quality gifts. Less sure about Herr Kartoffelkopf.

@The_Jaster wrote:

And last but not least some free hugs (which he kept calling presents) from my 8 year old nephew who was up visiting today.

It's that time of year again! I have my tiny tree and my fairy lights and tinsel around the flat. The Lady and I had our Christmas meal yesterday and (apart from the bunch of LADS LADS LADS at the next table) it was very nice. Lots of festive fizz.

Since Athrun's brought them up (as has the tagline), any fave carols/Christmas songs on the forum? I'm a big fan of Hark the Herald and, of course, Tom Lehrer's Christmas carol. Not a big fan of most of the more modern ones, in a move that will surprise nobody.

I finished up work for the year yesterday, and I'm not back until the 6th of January. That's even with me losing four days of annual leave and about twenty hours of flexi, but nonetheless I'm very, very grateful that I've got that amount of time off. 

I'm starting to get set up for Christmas. I'm underway with the shopping, starting to make plans to catch up with friends and family, and I've just bought my Christmas game for myself (the physical version of A Hat In Time, on Switch). It's my work's night out tonight, we're out at some fancy place in Edinburgh. If I'm not too hungover, I'll head over the west tomorrow to 'properly' start my Christmas break. Looking forward to it!

Silent Night is the best carol, but I think that's not really a Scottish thing. I don't think I've ever seen a Christmas caroller, or heard about anyone going around houses and up and down streets to sing songs to folk.

I work on Christmas day like any other week. I get like six days off around new year - may make a trip to Hokkaido

Being in retail I work most of it but this year I've been a tad tricksy and finish early on Dec 31st then back on a Late Jan 6th, also got a week off at the end of January.

Grim stuff from Drunka (who I imagine cares slightly less - not sure if it's a big thing over there?) and Mas. Happier stuff from Cappa, and Silent Night's a very good shout. I'm slowly playing through AHiT and - yep, I can see it as a good Christmas game. Nice and cheery.

To be honest I don't really care about Christmas, buying stuff for people that won't use it or don't need it on some basically random day at the end of the year, as none of really care about baby Jesus.

Still 5 days at the start of the year is decent time off, where I can look at buying with my Christmas money yay capitalism.

Next I may also feel differently because new consoles and can ask for a game for those.

AS A CATHOLIC I CARE VERY MUCH ABOUT BABY AND ADULT JESUSES THANK YOU MASOFDAS

Nah, don't give a fig about the religious or capitalistic side of Christmas, but I'm big into the community and family, musical, and consumable angles. Fair enough if you don't though! Get them extra pounds working over the Yules.

What you're saying is the good things about Christmas but really shouldn't we be doing that all year not just one day.

I'm not sure I agree in some cases. I appreciate mince pies, carols, and Christmas trees more because they're not spread across the year: they are singularly dedicated to warming the heart in the coldest months. The community side of things, maybe, but I definitely don't spend any more time with my family than I'd want to at the moment. A week over Christmas is enough, and again becomes more special because of it.

I get it, I do.

Just for myself and Dad both working on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day, got to drive to Torquay etc. Where we could have done something this weekend and actually have more time with the family but we don't, as for some reason has to be that day.

Feel same about mother's (father's for me) day etc, surely you can get ya mum flowers any time of the year.