Dale Yu: It’s Beginning To Feel A Lot Like Christmas

As I mentioned last week, there’s already a certain holiday feel in the air at my house.  The holidays are a big deal around here (as we usually host both Thanksgiving and Christmas festivities), and we’re in the midst of a whirlwind cleaning session to make sure that we’re ready for all the guests.  The downside of this is that I’ve had to clear the perpetual Solo Agricola game off the dinner table so we could put plates (of all things!) on the table…

But, as the Christmas season (err, holiday season*) approaches, signs of the change are not evident in just my house.  As I was out shopping yesterday, I noticed that there were already a multitude of Christmas trees and holiday lights around the stores and buildings in the area—and it’s not even Thanksgiving yet!

*From this point on, please note that every time I use the word “Christmas”, it can be replaced with “Chanukkah”, “Kwanzaa”, “Festivus”, “Winterval”, “Winter Solstice”, “Yule”, “Christmahanukwanzaka” or whatever other end-of-year holiday terminology you wish to use or believe in.  My political correctness stops here (though one might question if it ever truly began…)

Thus, I figured that this time is as good a time as any to start thinking about the holidays.  In many ways, the thinking part of the holidays is almost done here!  All of the party planning is already done, ingredients for Thanksgiving Dinner have been purchased, and the house is almost clean.  In fact, we finished so early this year that we were able to start some Christmas shopping.

The boys, as usual, have one thousand ideas of what they want.  Luckily for me, they have included games on their list of things that they “must have” from Santa.  Ryan (my younger one) has continually asked for the “Scooby Doo 3-D Haunted House” game for which I can thank the incessant commercials on the Cartoon Network for imprinting this into his poor little impressionable mind.  Christopher (the older one) has enjoyed the HABA games that we’ve tried, so I’ll likely try to get him one of those to play.  Of course, I did also get a new Heroscape off the Great Lakes Games prize table—and it might be time to see whether he can handle the basics of a game like that.  If nothing else, he’ll have a whole bunch of miniature action figures (well, not so miniature in the case of Grimnak) to play with as well!

Thus, I’ve chosen this week to start my holiday columns.  It’s only one day early—though I endeavor to start this series in the middle of October next year to keep up with the Joneses… So I’ll start with a list of Seven Things That Tell Me It’s Christmas!

1. Going to Essen

Well, I’ll have to be honest with you.  Going to Essen generally marks the beginning of the Christmas Season for me!  Many people have made the trip to Essen something akin to a pilgrimage—and I’d have to agree.  If it is at all possible, I’d certainly suggest that going once is something that every gamer should try to do.  When I’m there, it’s like being the proverbial kid-in-a-candy-store. (And no, not a bull-in-a-china-shop!) There is certainly a sense of wonderment to find yourself in a huge exhibition hall with about 6,000 new games to look at and try. Luckily for me, as I understand the whole Santa thing, I go ahead and get a lot of the new games that are there… Christmas comes a bit early for me, but the good news is that I often get to keep opening my presents even beyond the actual Christmas date as there just isn’t enough time in my schedule to play all those games before 12/25! 

2. Looking at Local Stores

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve also spent a bit of time shopping in the local stores in the past week.  You can definitely tell that it’s close to Christmas because all of the bookstores have their games out on display!  At the local Barnes and Noble, I found the following games prominently displayed on a table near the Starbucks area:  Settlers of Catan, Settlers of Catan Card Game, Munchkin, Apples to Apples, Blokus, Blokus Trigon, Alibi, Pillars of the Earth, Arkadia, Age of Empires III and Carcassonne.  And that list is in addition to the mounds of stuff like Fact or Crap, Pirates of the Caribbean Liar’s Dice game, and other such stuff…

I was duly impressed by the selection available at my local bookstore.  I was further impressed by the fact that there was a sign up near the coffee area advertising that the café area was reserved for gaming on Tuesday nights, even during the holiday shopping season.  I know that offering the space may just be a ploy to increase traffic to the store and to generate coffee sales at their café, but still—it’s a nice thing to see at the bookstore!  Though paying MSRP kills me, if I need a last minute gift for someone, I might actually buy a game from the Barnes and Noble just to make sure that they get some sales from the games so that they stock them next year—or maybe so that they stock them all the time, and not just for the four months of the Christmas Shopping Season…

3. Making a List

This is the first year that the kids have actually been able to make a Christmas list (as it’s the first year that they’ve actually WANTED specific things).  I really got a kick out of helping them write their letters to Santa.  Yes, I know that it’s early to do all of that, but how can you resist a four-year-old wanting to write to Santa?!  At least, we’re holding out on the Christmas videos… No Grinch until after Thanksgiving!

Of course, I have to also make my own list.  For better or worse, my family and close friends have realized that I do really like games, and even though I have 800+ games in the closet, I’m always looking for more!  What they’ve also realized is that using “up-to-date” shopping lists such as the Games Magazine 100 are really not that useful when the games on those lists are either (a) already in my possession, (b) are over a year old, or (c) not the sorts of games that I’m interested in… Thus, I usually generate a list of games that I’m interested in for my family to go to the Internet (usually at MOBRTMBLIAO’s website or BGG) to learn about them.  This year, there is going to be a fair number of games on the list as there were plenty of Rio Grande games that I didn’t pick up in Essen (for a multitude of reasons) as well as a number of games that I’d be happy to own but haven’t made the effort to go buy yet.

4. The Annual Waiting Game

Making the Christmas list leads me to the next rite of Winter… The Annual Pre-Order Waiting Game.  As I just mentioned, I left almost all of the RGG games behind in Essen.  First, many of them did not yet have printed English components.  Second, given the cost of the games factoring in the exchange rate, it just wasn’t feasible to buy them in Europe!  Thus, my list of games will be heavily slanted towards the new RGG releases.  Of course, the biggest issue here is whether or not the games will arrive in the US in time for Christmas!  As much as everyone wants to get games as gifts, no one wants to give an empty box… So there’s always a lot of watching of the estimated arrival dates of the games.  As we all know, those dates are a fairly inexact measure of when the games will actually arrive, so there is usually a bit of consternation until the games actually arrive in the mail!  This year, there is a bit less anxiety as many of the other American companies already had their full product lines produced in time for Essen, and Rio Grande seemed to have most of their games ready at the printers by the Fair.

5. Getting to Play Games – Christmas in November!

This time of year has also always been nice as it gives me plenty of opportunity to play games.  As friends and family generally come here at Thanksgiving, it presents a great opportunity to play games all weekend.  I look forward to getting a few days this week and then again after Christmas.

6. Cleaning out the Game Closet (pre- and post-)

As you’ve likely noticed in the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to clean out the game closet lately.  I’m out of room!  My space is pretty well fixed in our basement, and I’m once again to the point where I have no more storage space!  Thus, I’ve been trying to pare down the collection to make room for the new games.  Thanks again to everyone who has been able to help me out with this arduous process!

I might also take the time to re-organize the game closet soon.  Right now there isn’t much organization in the closet.  Games are loosely kept together based on matching box size.  After that, the room has a semblance of temporal relationship (i.e. all the games I got from Essen two years ago were placed together on a shelf when I unpacked).  However, that organization is a bit skewed as games almost never get put back exactly where they came from.  Thus, over the course of the year, there is a bit of spatial drift that goes on with the different games which is interesting to observe.

So how do I find my games?  It’s a complicated, yet Jedi-like system, where I basically have to remember where I last put them away.  It also helps that I can generally remember the box art of the game… (which is just like my 1500+ CDs where I can remember the color of the spine and the type of font used generally).  So I use my Jedi skills to put me around the correct storage shelf, then scan the games for the right color and sized box to get the game.  The only downside of this is that my system generally forces me to put away all my games on my own or else I’ll never be able to find them again!

In any event, I’m waiting to see how many games will move out of the game closet this month and how many new ones will arrive.  Then, the process of reshelving can begin.  I’m thinking about trying to hire Frank and Sandy to come up for the weekend and let them catalog and tag the games as they have in their basement.  Of course, I’m not sure who would manage the database once they left town…

7. New Year’s Resolutions

It’s almost that time of year to start thinking about what I’m going to make sure I do next year.  I think I just came up with the first item on the list: reorganizing the game closet!  I find that it takes me a long time to make up my New Year’s Resolution list because I prefer to choose things that I’ll be able to accomplish—and given my general laziness, it’s hard coming up with things that I think I can get done!  Might as well start now…

Well, I’m off to bake some bread and work on the stuffing
I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving!

Oh yeah… and if it’s your birthday today—HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Until your next appointment,
The Gaming Doctor

© 2007 Dale Yu

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Comments:

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Happy Thanksgiving, Dale! These past three years, the extended Christmas season has, for me, begun with BGG.Con. Since I can’t get to Essen, it gives me a chance to try out the new titles, decide what I want and get them on the list for those who want to give me gifts. This year, with Jay bringing many of the games that have not yet arrived to BGG.Con, it also represented a mini-Essen in shopping form. Now I get to make two lists of the titles that did not get picked up at the convention that I still want that are likely to be found between now and Christmas - one for my family and another for the BGG Secret Santa - a challenge, indeed. Oh, well - off to start putting away all of the games that went to BGG.Con and all of the new ones that came back with them! Posted by David Reed on Nov 21, 2007 at 08:34 AM | #

David, glad to hear you had a great time at BGG.con.  I did miss catching up with many of the people I met in Dallas last year.  However, I waslucky enough to already have Great Lakes Games to get my Essen game-playing fix in! Hope the Secret Santa thing works out! Dale Posted by Dale Yu on Nov 21, 2007 at 08:39 AM | #

Dale, around here the Christmas displays go up in October and sometimes in late September!  It’s absolutely insane. Happy holidays, my friend. Posted by Larry Levy on Nov 21, 2007 at 11:13 AM | #

Sandi and I have yet to make a habit of setting on fireXmas store displays put up before Halloween. So far. Posted by Frank Branham on Nov 21, 2007 at 01:21 PM | #

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