I've been meaning to write about this for a while now so forgive me if speaking of Christmas is a bit dated...
For Christmas Sari, Roland, Kirsten and I went over to a house that my parents were house-sitting for. My mum cooked a lovely dinner and the whole evening was really nice. Though I did a reasonable job of containing myself I was very excited about opening presents. That same child-like eagerness has always been there even if it's gotten less and less apparent as I've gotten older. When the time finally came I calmly moved to the living room and sat down waiting for the "onslaught". Little did I know that my mum had a sneaky trick up her sleeve. The Nintendo Wii, a new video game console if you haven't heard, was released in mid-November and I had been craving one ever since. Unfortunately, they were horribly impossible to find so I pretty much decided to hold off buying one until they were made more available (they're still hard to find, by the way). After opening a few presents she handed me one which I opened (very carefully). To my surprise (and dismay) it was a copy of a video game for the Nintendo Wii. Historically my parents have insisted on NOT buying me video games for Christmas in favor of more"productive" toys like LEGOs, for example, so this was quite a surprise. I immediately thought that this was her way of making peace with video games, though without a the system to go with it I was out of luck. A very nice gesture but she didn't quite understand that I needed more to be able to use the new game. I wrote it off as an honest mistake and figured I would buy the system eventually anyway. Not a big deal at all. Our Christmas continued and later on I opened another present only to find that it was the strategy guide for the game. She sure knew how to rub it in my face. I tried so hard to sound grateful but I'm afraid the disappointment and frustration in my voice was easily heard. She then handed me a couple more which ended up being extra controllers for the system. Even at this point I had no idea what was coming. About fifteen minutes later my mum said something along the lines of, "Okay, one more." She proceeded to hand me a reasonable sized box which had a bit of weight to it. It wasn't until that point that I realized this whole charade she was putting me through was all a game (which my dad was in on too, incidentally). I opened up the package and low and behold there's a brand-new Wii system. What a nice surprise! And she played it all off so well. It turns out that she knew somebody that worked for Nintendo so was able to get one pretty easily. Well done mum! Well done!