(Edit: This is the third time in nine months that I'm reposting this entry. For all my research, the words "holiday" and "swag" in the title has triggered some sort of bot traffic, which has guaranteed this to be the most viewed post of my 2020-21 gaming year. Here's hoping a change in title keeps this off my Weekly Top 10 Blog Posts list, ten months later. I mean, it wasn't a spectacular gaming haul like in years past. I'd delete the post outright, but the non-gift stuff I mention makes me all nostalgic and should be kept for my posterity... until Google kills Blogger one day.)
Another Christmas is in the books, and I for one will complain. With the pandemic, my own personal medical issues (more on that later), and the overall divided nature of the country, the concept of Christmas with just my wife and the girls wasn't the original Christmas we wanted, however, in hindsight, it was the Christmas we needed.
We snagged a LOT of deals on the kid's stuff, and both my wife and I were pretty blasé when it came to a wish list. She gave me a short list (of which I was largely successful, and thanks to impeccable timing of my bout with COVID, I never assembled an Amazon wishlist, or a special order list for the FLGS that won't arrive until Christmas Eve, so my wife did the best she could.
The Swag:
- Smart Ass by University Games: Can't argue with a trivia game with raucous interjection, even if it's not your turn. It might also be a game my wife will actually try and play.
- "I'll be GNOME for Christmas" Kitchen Towel
- Assorted A-Treat Diet 20 oz bottles: My passion for gaming was fueled by Mountain Dew, Doritos, and M&Ms on my family's dining room table, but my heart goes to A-Treat. Located in Allentown, PA, A-Treat is the local soda and certain flavors (Big Blue) fueled some zany antics in the 90's. Despite their delivery range to supermarkets being over 30 miles from our house, my house went to the closest supermarket and purchased sixteen 20 oz bottles... of various diet products. The Diet Orange Cream Soda is the closest in comparison to the full sugar version.
- Bicycle "Aurora" playing cards. Self-bought with the big boss's Christmas gift card. I like the card backs, but everything blends in on the faces, which would make them poor to use in a Savage Worlds game.
- Llamas Unleashed. Also from the boss' gift card. From the same folks that brought you Unstable Unicorns. I figured a few llamas can't be that bad, right?
- Oh yeah, my biggest gift was the office chair the rest of the swag is piled on. A fat guy working from from home 8+ hours every day since March has not been kind to the furniture in our home office, and this chair is super solid, on wheels, and is super comfy.
(Edit: I will add two self-purchased stocking stuffers. Space Dwarves packs #1 and #2 from Simtac for the Macho Women with Guns RPG were Bob Olley sculpts I grabbed off of eBay. They arrived in the care of USPS on December 21st and arrived at my doorstep on New Year's Eve.)
Basement: We were one of the areas that got two feet of snow last week, and were blessed with 60 degree temps and two and half inches of rain over Christmas. My streak of keeping a dry basement finally failed and I have multiple pumps desperately keeping up. It even gently lapped at the ignition/motor for the furnace, leaving us without heat/hot water from 10am-6pm on Christmas Day. Once the water drops, I have approval from the household financial officer for a full horsepower (or more) sump pump with battery back-up, cause the 1/2 we have installed and the 1/3 "mobile assistant" ain't cutting it on 100-year old storms... and we're getting those every other year now. I think I'll need to replace two ill-placed cardboard boxes I left on the lowest shelf/footrest of the painting bench, but no damage to anything else. Once the water goes down enough, I shall trudge through it and grab the things I need for a very special Christmas game.
Health: Our dear readers might remember
my super-special episode with COVID. I'm still cleared for work, did the mandatory face-to-face shopping for Christmas, but my endurance is still not there and that dreaded COVID cough seems to have returned this weekend. Time to call the doctor, and hopefully it's an anti-biotic for some residual pneumonia.
Maja, Chess, and Meatballs: To counter all the dire news above, our traditional Swedish Smorgasbord was cut back considerably thanks to COVID and no guests, so we only made one batch of kjøttboller (Swedish Meatballs). My eldest daughter, Maja, has been helping, and to the relief of a tired Dad, took over the reins of the process, allowing me only to chop onions and brown the meatballs. The best part? When I eat them, I have flashbacks to my grandmother's meatballs on Christmas Eve, many moons ago. They're as close to perfect as I have seen in the last 25 years.
I also took some time out to correct one fatherly sin. I finally taught Maja chess. Way back in July, during our trip to Wellsboro, I picked up a reasonable chess/checkers/backgammon set at
Pop's Culture Shoppe. Outside of the Knights' movements, she picked up everything fast, we paused the games to talk a lot about looking beyond the next move, and Dad still made plenty of unintended boneheaded moves to keep things interesting. Besides being rusty, I was never a good chess player to begin with, but learning the game in my youth helped me comprehend wargaming and other non-hobby things later in life. If it supplants Uno a few times this year, that would be great.
Project 350: I was saving this until the end of the year, but since the post seems like a full disclosure: year: 510 (346/164) from 513 (349/164). Of course, I found five more holiday pics to add to my future/scheduled holidays (I already have posts set up for God Jul, Christmas Eve, and Christmas until 2026.) so that will cancel out the work posting this week, so it's a wash. As the month/year winds down, I only have some Christmas games to play with the girls to play/write, one Star Wars Actual Play, and a book review, if I can get the time to read the last 50 pages. We promise to do better next year.
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