----------------------------------------
       Christmas Updates
       December 26th, 2017
       ----------------------------------------
       
       Do you have friends or family who send you one of those
       end-of-year newsletters as a Christmas card? If you're not
       familiar, they tend to be summaries of the major events and
       achievements of the year for each family member. They're often
       formatted badly and feature a giant family photo as a header. All
       in all, super cheesy.
       
       I thought about writing one of those here as a Gopher Christmas
       Update, but I think I'll spare everyone. Instead I just wanted to
       drop a couple notes about how my Christmas day went.
       
       My son is five and the absolute perfect age for Christmas
       awesomeness. He was really into everything about the season from
       the start. This year he was paying attention to all the holiday
       songs and asking us what they were about. We watched about 15
       Christmas movies, including such classics as Home Alone and Ernest
       Saves Christmas. We drove around to look at lights, and we looked
       at Google Earth to talk about Santa and his travels. Life has been
       pretty good this season.
       
       On Christmas morning he had a bunch of presents to open and a few
       surprises from Santa. The toys were all a big hit and he managed
       to play with just about everything all in one day. Although there
       were a lot of things he asked for, there are two surprise gifts
       that I expect to become the favorites in the long run:
       
         1) Legos! I got the classic lego box with 144 pieces for him.
            I don't want him to get into Lego Sets. They're too expensive
            and too restrictive. He seems to be of the same mind. He
            built a whole city last night, complete with rotating
            restaurant tower and space ships. In a couple months I'll
            bust out all my legacy legos and toss them his way as well.
       
         2) GameBoy Color! I grabbed one of these at a cool game shop in
            Myrtle Beach. I also picked up all 3 Zelda games for the
            system, Pokemon Silver, and Super Mario World. He's still
            a bit young for the games, but he likes watching me play
            Nintendo (he has my old system) and he tries occasionally.
            I expect this to sit around for most of the year, but it'll
            prime him for some amazing classic gaming. 
            
            I'm working as hard as I can to build an appreciation for
            imagination in his play and games. The classic NES and GB
            games fit right in. They're simplistic, but also challenging.
            He worked with me, directing my choices, as we beat The
            Guardian Legend earlier this year. I think it's good for his
            growth to experience games that really challenge you and
            don't let you just skip the hard parts or show you how to get
            by with a ghost. Trial and error and perserverence!
       
       Speaking of games that require perserverence, I beat the first
       playthrough of Escape Goat last week and I'm working on the second
       set now. There's some insanely tricky boards. If you like puzzle
       games, or goats, or both, pick it up on GOG or Steam.
       
       I hope you all had a good holiday. Cheers