Merry Christmas Everyone

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42506577

by joshestroud • 2 years ago

1503 372 2 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

What are some of your favorite memories from Christmas? Share them here :)

- Josh :)

GarnetFloride• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas One memory was getting a PowerMac G4 which was totally cool because it was classified as a munition.

Another was getting thru to mom while I was in Europe and watching the phone counter start counting up really fast.

codevark• 2 years ago

When I was six my parents got me a 26" Schwinn single-speed bike. It was as tall as I was. I rode it until college, doing things that were heretofore unknown to science. IT WAS GREAT.

dc_ist• 2 years ago

Unwrapping Ocarina of Time. My parents had me convinced it was sold out everywhere. That moment is seared into my brain.

Yhippa• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you too. One of my fondest memories was getting a tiny battery-powered train set when I was around 6. No idea why I liked it so much. We didn't have many toys growing up so you had to enjoy the heck out of the ones you did get. I remember when I opened it up the room was dark and we sat under the light of our fake Christmas tree with multicolored lights.

My kids have too much these days and wonder if they will ever experience something like that.

qntmfred• 2 years ago

And on earth peace, goodwill toward men

changexd• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas homies! We don't really celebrate Christmas in my country but I would still like to wish you all a great holiday! much love <3

kyrielei• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas ^^

haliax2• 2 years ago

Came home from Christmas Eve shopping/sight seeing in Manhattan with my dad and baby sister to find that our mom had gone and gotten us a puppy! I’d never had a dog before. It remains one of the best and happiest memories of my life :)

jakebasile4• 2 years ago

What did you name the dog? This never happened to me, but if it did I couldn't resist giving it a Christmas themed name.

haliax2• 2 years ago

Polar Bear! He was a Bichon Poodle mix and his tail hadn’t grown in yet so he looked exactly like one of the little polar bears from the Coca Cola commercials

mrbluecoat• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas!

michaelsshaw3• 2 years ago

God jul, and Merry Christmas to you, personally, my friend!

tylerflick• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas!

jamieplex2• 2 years ago

To you too!

calrain• 2 years ago

Back when I was very young, with my family, cousins, all over at my grandparents place, having lots of fun.

Here in Australia, Christmas is in our summer, so we used to have watermelon seed wars where everyone runs around the house eating watermelon as fast as possible to build up a mouthful of seeds to use as 'ammo' to machine gun spit at everyone else.

Was hilarious, and a very long time ago...

lazystar8• 2 years ago

three days before xmas in 2022, my partner of 6 years threatened to kill me because i was scared to travel through an ice storm to her mom's house. while she was downstairs getting her pocket knife, i texted her best friend for help and got her to call her and she talked her down. the ice storm prevented any travel for 2 days; we still made it to her moms for xmas, but i was gone mentally for the next year and a half.

broke up with her in may this year; this is my first xmas all alone. all my friends and family moved out of state years ago, and i spent all my vacation days and sick days studying for a coding interview that i had last week for my dream job. i bombed it, partly because of anxiety, partly because ive been procedural programming for 8 years and suck at OOP principles, and partly because the PTSD makes it tough to study/concentrate around xmas.

anyway, im drinking a bottle of mccallan, out here alone with my two cats, and its still a better xmas than the last two years. apologies for trauma dumping, just tipsy i guess.

oh and i did get the oracle java 8 associate cert last night, so i got that going for me, which is nice.

edit:

best xmas memory was playing KOTOR 1 when it came out, while eating a big tub of dansk sugar cookies. that dantooine music was lovely

CoastalCoder2• 2 years ago

Sorry about the crappy part, and congrats on the good stuff!

If it's any encouragement, I bombed a bunch of interviews during my 14 months of unemployment, but in January I'm returning to a position I loved.

Just saying that you shouldn't extrapolate too much from even a string of such things.

Hope your new year is awesome.

lazystar8• 2 years ago

thank you, and congrats! best of luck in your new job!

jemmyw• 2 years ago

I don't know if there's a way to ask with sensitivity, but I'm very interested to know why you stayed with her for 18 months after she threatened to kill you?

Sorry about the job, happens to the best of us. I think when it's the dream job you're that much more likely to bomb. I quit my dream job because it couldn't pay the bills and joined a place I thought I wouldn't last at, now in year 8 it turns out it was the dream job.

lazystar8• 2 years ago

no worries, been asking myself that question too. my best guess is that i had disassociated because i couldnt bear the cognitive dissonance from accepting the fact that i was in an abusive relationship. before that incident, everything in that relationship had been going well - but looking back i see that i was slowly becoming more and more reliant on her for her network of friends and her family, which made breaking up a difficult thought to consider. anyway, the other thing going on was sleep deprivation from a severely deviated septum - i broke up with her in may 2024 after a couples counseling session, in which she a) tried to blame me for the stabbing incident, and b) admitted to kicking me awake every night over the previous 4 years when i snored.

anyway. got surgery to fix that apnea issue in july, and ive been getting back to my old self.

edit: the other jarring thing was just how successful i was at work. anyone that uses AWS lambda benefited from my projects in 2023/2024 - some of that stuff got L10 visibility inside AWS. i guess i spent all my mental energy at work, even though i was (and still am) fully remote/WFH. anyway it was tough to reconcile my failures in my personal life with my successes in work life - i was both a failure and a success.

jtxt• 2 years ago

OP's relationship story sounds so familiar to me.

[Insert TMI story.] Cycle of abuse: https://psychcentral.com/health/cycle-of-abuse

Fortunately, it ended ok. I healed for over a year before dating again, and dated someone for exactly a year to make sure it was good relationship. It still is. :D

artimaeis• 2 years ago

Man that Christmas playing KOTOR was phenomenal. First game I remember beating and immediately restarting to see the other storylines. Christmas cookies for sure enhances the experience.

matheusmoreira3• 2 years ago

I have a similar experience with Mass Effect. Completed the trilogy just in time for Christmas. Just getting lost in another universe like that is amazing and it's becoming increasingly difficult as I get older. Really treasure these moments, they remind me of a carefree childhood. Never played KOTOR myself but I always read great things about it. Look forward to playing it one day.

Merry Christmas.

edm0nd• 2 years ago

Cheers homie! I'll go pour myself some Angels Envy and drink with ya.

lazystar8• 2 years ago

cheers!

whatamidoingyo• 2 years ago

i bombed it, partly because of anxiety

I feel this. Can't tell you how many interviews I bombed because of anxiety. The worst one I had spent like 3 months interviewing with the company, passed all of their tests, etc. When it came time to meet the team, I just froze. I answered all of their questions correctly, but it was like I wasn't myself. I became extremely slow, stammering my words, and just blanking out. The CTO couldn't take it anymore and said "just stop talking. This isn't going to work". I quickly ended the call without saying anything and felt so defeated. What is wrong with me.

That was years ago. I'm much better now, mostly because I have the confidence in my skills, but it still comes up, especially when people are being aggressive during interviews.

Anyway, Merry Christmas. I wish you the best.

mynameisvlad• 2 years ago

If it was the Seattle ice storm you're talking about, WTF. I could barely walk 10 feet out to let my dog out for potty/poop, let alone driving a car through that. The entire city shut down for the day.

lazystar8• 2 years ago

yep. she had a dually truck and got home from the barn at 5pm; the storm was set to hit at 5:30. she wanted to load up the gifts, luggage, cats in the truck, travel 2 hours to a ferry down the backroads, and gamble on beating the storm. when i said i was scared, she went ballistic. never seen anyone get that mad before; being stuck with her in that house for 2 days after that was the worst moment of my life (as homer simpson would say, worst moment of your life... so far!)

jongjong• 2 years ago

It's hard to comprehend how much mental trauma someone must have gone through to be so unstable and violent.

The range of human experiences is significant. Humans communicate using the same languages and same expressions but mentally, different people are wired very differently.

Trauma seems to spread like a virus.

olalonde3• 2 years ago

That's horrible, sorry you had to go through that. I can’t even imagine the mental toll, Java 8 really?

lazystar8• 2 years ago

my specialty's always been refactoring legacy codebases; java 8 is gonna be the new FORTRAN lol

drunkonvinyl• 2 years ago

That resulted in a loud chuckle. My mind was perfectly prepared to not expect a punch line, and it smacked me over the head. Thanks for the Christmas gift of laughter.

mynameyeff• 2 years ago

If you enjoy high-end scotch, you're a good person in my book.

jedberg6• 2 years ago

I'm Jewish, so all my Christmas's growing up were kinda the same. Sleep in, have brunch, wander over to my neighbor's house around noon to see what kind of loot they got and help them play with their new toys. Sometimes we'd go out for Chinese food and a movie.

But my favorite was Christmas 1999. My girlfriend was out of town with her family and there was no reason to go home to mine, so I was alone (my roommates were with their families too). I decided to go to the movies in Emeryville.

I was going to see Galaxy Quest, Bicentennial Man, and Man on the Moon. The timing lined up perfectly to see all three. About 50 other people were there to do the same thing. When it was time to go in for the first movie, a staff member came out and told us that it would start about 30 minutes late. This would of course cause us to miss all the other movies.

About 30 people stepped forward at the same time and asked to speak to the manager. :). We explained to him that it would throw our whole schedule off. Since it was Christmas, he was kind enough to adjust the schedule so that we could all see all three movies.

That was a great day.

ianwalter2• 2 years ago

Wow what a great set of movies too

jedberg6• 2 years ago

1999 is considered by many enthusiasts as a peak movie year. It was a great cap to a great year.

https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?title_type=feature&releas...

29athrowaway4• 2 years ago

Jews have contributed significantly to what is recognizable today as Christmas time.

Many catchy classic Christmas songs were written by Jewish songwriters.

madnthrow• 2 years ago

That's nice!

petre2• 2 years ago

Bob Dylan has Jewish heritage as well, although I don't recall him writing any Christmas songs.

midnightchair• 2 years ago

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was written by a great Jewish man, how cool is that! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._May

Rudolph has an odd nose, and he gets chosen to lead all the other Reindeer! Kids love this song. You teach it to them when they are young and they'll never forget it!

ix101• 2 years ago

That second sentence was absolutely not what the first sentence led me to believe what was coming!

heresie-dabord2• 2 years ago

Just say the name of the great jazz artist Mel Tormé...

"I saw a spiral pad... Forty minutes later that song was written. I wrote all the music and some of the lyrics."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Christmas_Song

ilbeeper2• 2 years ago

We also contributed the protagonist.

judah• 2 years ago

Jews wrote all the classic Christmas hits including:

- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

- Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

- The New Testament

Sam6late• 2 years ago

I'm Muslim, so all my Christmas's school and college days were kinda the same, 1980s. I would have a real small tree xmass decorated at home and no one would blink about it, then wander over to my christian friends' neighborhood around noon to see what kind of cherry and wine they were serving. This is that neighborhood now https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1031546789002116&set=pcb...

assimpleaspossi• 2 years ago

A Jewish friend of mine would get a small tree and call it his "Moses bush".

abustamam3• 2 years ago

I'm Muslim too and I always find it interesting to see how various non-Christian theists observe Christmas. Obviously we don't "celebrate" but I personally don't see anything wrong with partaking in the secular parts of Christmas (and let's be real, in the west, it's pretty much all secular).

My parents felt otherwise when I was growing up, so my siblings and I weren't allowed to do anything Christmas related, but now my wife and I would do seasonal things like watch a live performance of Nutcracker or Pentatonix or TSO. And can't forget about watching the holiday classic movies like Elf and Die Hard!

jedberg6• 2 years ago

My house looks like that photo now too. I love Christmas music too.

In fact my friend's house is featured in the top link on HN right now. He's helped me with my own show.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42494512

Simon_O_Rourke• 2 years ago

I'm largely of the "hell is other people" mindset around Christmas, from the overtly fascist elderly relatives to the incomprehensible demands of immediate family. I would love just one Christmas like that!

andrepd• 2 years ago

Indeed. If you have a nice family to be around at Christmas cherish it, it's not so common as it seems!

BLKNSLVR2• 2 years ago

I think people tend to fascism as they age, the more they've done and seen and accumulated, the more conservative they get and the more their personal experience of the world must be maintained, protected.

Talk to them about their youth, when they were wild and rebellious. Find out what trouble they caused. Remind them, and it just might crack the encrusted exterior a little bit.

kleiba2• 2 years ago

But my favorite was Christmas 1999. My girlfriend was out of town

Classic.

jedberg6• 2 years ago

FWIW I ended up marrying her. Now we go out of town together. :)

i_am_a_peasant2• 2 years ago

I’m Jewish too. But I’ve always been around people who celebrate Christmas. I don’t bother lighting the Menorah for Hanukkah this year since I live alone. I got half a mind to go to the local temple and sit with strangers there but I don’t really feel like it. Treating myself to some McDonalds a la uber eats today. I never eat the stuff.

bowmessage• 2 years ago

Please don’t poison yourself with that chemical food!

romanobro56• 2 years ago

If you started 30 minutes late you wouldn’t miss all the other movies just the middle one

AznHisoka• 2 years ago

OK, i am ignorant, but why do most Jewish people eat Chinese food on Christmas? Is there something I am missing?

fumplethumb• 2 years ago

Most other places are closed. Chinese restaurants are typically open on Christmas!

chuckwnelson• 2 years ago

My understanding is it's the only other places that are open on Christmas.

pitaj• 2 years ago

I believe it's because Chinese restaurants historically are the only ones open since they don't celebrate Christmas.

tasty_freeze4• 2 years ago

Chinese restaurants are often owned by first or second generation Chinese immigrants who (1) aren't Christian and (2) haven't been in the US long enough to adopt local customs. Since restaurants often are marginally profitable, they tend to stay open on Christmas because there is profit to be made, especially since most of the competition is closed that day.

If you are Jewish, Christmas obviously isn't nearly as important to your (often nominally) Christian neighbors and there isn't much to do on Christmas day. If you decide you don't want to cook, Chinese restaurants are way over-represented in the choice of open restaurants. Once you do that for a couple years it becomes its own tradition.

I grew up in a Catholic household but my family, after years of making Turkey and spending hours cooking, for the past few years has switched to Chinese food on Christmas. I don't miss the turkey and gravy.

woodruffw3• 2 years ago

Others have mentioned that it's because Chinese places are open, but another reason is that Chinese food is (or was) not obviously treif, meaning that there is (or was) a degree of plausible deniability around eating it.

Source: family apocrypha.

nozzlegear3• 2 years ago

My Christmas Eve tradition with my wife for the last 14 years has been to eat as much Chinese food as we possibly can at our favorite Chinese place. Then we drive around town looking at Christmas lights while listening to classic Christmas music. Neither of us are religious, but we were both raised Christian.

I came into this thread thinking that I don't really have any great Christmas memories. My family was poor growing up, my parents shouldn't have been together for as long as they tried to make it work, and my father had a lot of issues with drugs and alcohol. But now that I think about it, these Christmas Eve memories with my wife are my favorite.

james_marks• 2 years ago

It’s not just Jewish people; it’s anyone who doesn’t want to cook, and Chinese restaurants are historically the only thing open.

memhole• 2 years ago

This is the top comment I hope for on every Christmas. Some of us draw snowmen instead of Santas. We all get a day to enjoy in our own way though. Sounds like a great time.

duckmysick2• 2 years ago

My upbringing was pretty secular but we still did plenty of snow angels.

htk• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas, hackers!

benreesman• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas HN!

I’ve spent a lot of holidays alone over the last few years, and the HN community was a joy and a comfort every time.

I have the pleasure of spending holidays with family this year, and I’m trying to answer everyone’s questions about computer stuff, I invariably wind up referring to the great comments on HN as the best resource around.

I look forward to spending another year with all of you, and hope you all have a wonderful holiday.

ashton314• 2 years ago

I’ve always loved Christmas—I’m blessed that it’s all good memories. But having a little kid the past few years is a whole new level of magic.

Merry Christmas everyone. :)

unboxedvariable• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas HN!

Hope everyone was able to slow down the pace a little, connect a little more with people we may have not caught up with recently and send/receive positive vibes. And happy new year.

mukti2• 2 years ago

Some of my favorite memories are the times I got video game systems. Most notibly the Sega Genesis and z scale trains I got in '94/'95/'96 (not sure the exact year, I was very young) and GameBoy Color in '99. I got a Xbox in '01, Xbox 360 in '05; but they didn't quite have the same "magic" that they had when I was young. Also as a young kid, watching the Rankin Bass stop motion movies on the days leading up to Christmas. Then talking with my brother and sister while we tried (failed) to sleep on Christmas Eve, watching more and more obscure Christmas cartoons and whatever else would come on TV late on Christmas Eve night/Christmas morning.

The best non-Christmas morning memories were just random times I was at family Christmas parties or gatherings. Seeing aunts, uncles, and cousins dancing talking having fun. As a kid, we used to have the parties at family homes, which was always fun and super memorable. Later we moved to a hall as the family got bigger and cousins started to bring their children, in laws, and friends. I can't really point out any particular memory as good; just all the time spent with family, not necessarily caring about what else was going on in the world at the time.

Dracophoenix• 2 years ago

watching more and more obscure Christmas cartoons and whatever else would come on TV late on Christmas Eve night/Christmas morning.

Which ones if you're able to recall?

mukti2• 2 years ago

There were quite a few I'll never remember the name of, but there were a lot of different renditions of A Christmas Carol with unknown characters on Cartoon Network or some other kids channel. I definitely remember Christmas Comes to Pac-Land[1], 'Twas the Night Before Christmas[2], A Jetson Christmas Carol[3], and one of the Flitstone Christmas episodes where they were acting in a play.

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499003/ [2] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0208654/ [3] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290683/

MarkMarine• 2 years ago

My grandmother broke the Christmas gift rules with my parents and got my brother and I a NES, Tetris, duck hunt with the gun, and I believe the Olympics with the power mat. Christmas windfall I’ll never forget, seeing my parents faces drop as we opened all those games and just ignored every other present. Grandma had a nack for tweaking my mom any way she could, one of the meanest people I’ve ever met in my life but this year our interests aligned.

My mom was enthralled by Tetris, better at the game than anyone in the house by a good 10 levels, and basically impossible to depose from the controller. I think it softened the blow with Grandma.

a_t48• 2 years ago

Gameboy Color in 99, too. Pokemon Gold all the way through the Y2K New Years was nice.

laurieg• 2 years ago

I remember being given a large K'nex construction set as a toy at Christmas. I can still feel the visceral excitement of opening it up and looking at all the pieces, imagine what kind of things I'd build. I think the ferris wheel was my favorite.

A few years ago I was a bit down abd feeling like I'd never experience that kind of excitement and joy again. I've come to realize that now I'm older it's my job to create that same joy in others.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful day and can find a way to create just a little moment of joy for someone else. Merry Christmas!

brian-armstrong2• 2 years ago

K'nex! They exist! I had forgotten all about them. I also (now) fondly remember the K'nex Christmas.

cperciva• 2 years ago

When I was in Oxford, almost all the students went home for Christmas -- for the domestic students it was easy to travel, and most of the international students were wealthy enough that the cost didn't matter to them. I came from a middle class background and flying back to Canada would have been a significant cost (especially since my scholarship came with a living allowance which was only paid while I was in the UK) so I stayed in Oxford.

My third year in college, we had a new Warden (head of college) and while he, like all the other academic staff, generally vacated the college over Christmas, he felt obliged to offer Christmas hospitality.

So he sent out an email to the entire student population: "Any students in college over Christmas are welcome to come to the Warden's Lodge for afternoon tea at 3pm on Christmas Day." -- and as I was the only student in college over the vacation, I had a lovely afternoon talking to the Warden and his wife.

Graduate students generally don't have much interaction with college academic life -- undergrads usually meet with the Warden every term, but grad students are left to the academic departments to supervise -- so it was a rare and precious opportunity.

jimbokun• 2 years ago

Sounds like a very Harry at Hogwarts kind of Christmas!

delibaltas3• 2 years ago

I have seen movies starting like this.

pid-1• 2 years ago

Interesting, I had a similar experience as an exchange student in Britain.

radar1310• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas to all and to all a nice tech gift.

brokencipher• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas

onecommentman• 2 years ago

I’ll skip the well-meaning attempt at personal engagement (too old and cranky for that) and just wish everyone Merry Christmas (or whatever religious/winter solstice variants span your spiritual function space at this time of year) and the happiest of New Years.

heresie-dabord2• 2 years ago

Happy Solstice! It's all about the axial tilt of this pale blue dot where we all need more peace, kindness, and compassion.

illwrks• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it, if you're playing Santa for little ones I hope it was a success ;)

To everyone else, I hope you have a nice festive break!

One of my fondest Christmas memories was when my brother and I got a PlayStation 1 for Christmas, the excitement and entertainment was amazing, we had graduated from Gameboys to 3D graphics. My brother is very competitive so it was the best to win against him in the car racing game (Tommi Mäkinen Rally). I can't remember what other game we got but I do remember he and I playing Command on Conquer years later and that background music is burned into my mind :D

Years later with my own kid I have a greater appreciation for the expense and planning our parents went through to find one for us.

glitchc• 2 years ago

We get together as a family and make a lasagna. And before you ask, we're not Italian. It's just a fun tradition, and leads to some amazing memories.

ricardo81• 2 years ago

Feeding an unsuspecting and perhaps inebriated auntie dog biscuits that to be fair, looked like regular chocolate buttons.

mikewarot• 2 years ago

I always enjoyed the family get togethers over at my Father in law's house. There was always a festive spirit and plenty of really tasty food.

sowbug• 2 years ago

I didn't like my stepfather, but his family did Christmas right. We'd all go to his parents' house, and it seemed like there were a hundred family members there. Incredible food, tamales, a big pot of beans and fresh corn tortillas, carnitas. The grandfather did the Santa Claus tradition, handing out the presents in full costume and character, after which my 50 step-cousins and I would absolutely destroy whatever toys we had just received.

When bedtime arrived, of course there weren't enough beds for everyone, so each of us kids would grab couch cushions, find a nook somewhere between two pieces of furniture, and sleep like the dead on the 1970s plush carpet.

My mom wised up a few years later and divorced him, instantly improving the other 364 days of the year. But I missed those crazy Christmases.

vallard• 2 years ago

I was a missionary in Montevideo Uruguay never having been away from home for Christmas. There were fireworks all night long and we were just outside with all the kids going to different peoples houses and just having a blast. Was one night I felt like everyone was nice to us and just accepted us.

recursivedoubts• 2 years ago

My first Christmas vigil mass.

Merry Christmas everyone.

ChumpGPT• 2 years ago

I had an awesome uncle when we were kids (70's). He was a mover and shaker, a real-life hustler, the kind of guy who carried around a stack of 100s with a rubber band around them. He wore a long fur coat with a black hat. He looked like Cramer in the episode of Seinfeld where he had the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Every Christmas Eve after dinner he would take me and my brother out to the movies. Good Times....Good Times....

hooverd• 2 years ago

Listening to David Sedaris' Six to Eight Black Men. It's an amazing bit.

block_dagger• 2 years ago

One of his best.

booleandilemma• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas HN!

tmsh• 2 years ago

* approx age 6-7: unwrapping a Nintendo entertainment system (part-time English teacher single-parent mom but investment banker uncle)

* a few years later: same thing with SNES

* middle school: coming back from a small ski trip and starting to read John Grisham novels.

* college: staying over one break in western mass. Biking to Hadley mall where they had an Amy’s cheese pizza and bringing it back to the German house that had an oven.

* mid 20s: watching whatever odd PBS documentary while hanging out with my mom.

* early 30s: my aunt’s lasagna and extended family meals we took for granted at the time.

* late 30s: good news after a fertility journey.

* early 40s (today): my wife and I using our decade of experience navigating edge cases when filling prescriptions to help my MIL fill an important heart medication so she didn’t have to go to the ER for Christmas.

neofrommatrix2• 2 years ago

Indian (Hindu) here who went to a Catholic convent back home. My favorite memory is of a reenactment of Jesus’ birth on stage by a bunch of 10th graders (my class) and instantly falling for the girl that played Mary. I’m now married to her and we have a toddler. Merry Christmas!

SwiftyBug• 2 years ago

Ok, you gotta tell us that you named your baby Jesus, please.

neofrommatrix2• 2 years ago

Would have been a Hindu Jesus, if we had named him that. Missed that chance!

tasty_freeze4• 2 years ago

or in your case, Mary Christmas.

99catmaster• 2 years ago

Lmao

gweinberg• 2 years ago

Merry marry Mary Christmas!

jll293• 2 years ago

How romantic! Merry Christmas indeed.

blindriver• 2 years ago

If you are visiting SF, Christmas is the very best time to sightsee, especially in the morning. Every major location has plenty of free parking and no one is there. I have lived here for decades but Christmas is my favorite time to bring visitors because they can see everything that is normally hard to see because of parking, too many tourists etc.

29athrowaway4• 2 years ago

The worst time to visit is when Karl shows up, the bridges are not visible and the cold is uncomfortable.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_fog

jakebasile4• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas!

I had rented Final Fantasy 7 from Blockbuster so many times that my brother decided to get it for me for Christmas. Even though I never really snooped for presents he decided to mess with my head and wrapped it in two large bath towels and put it in an even larger box. This giant package below the tree for me, and it sounded like cloth - I figured it must've been a jacket or something until I opened it.

Another time I was looking for something (not presents) in my parent's room, and happened to find a very poorly hidden Playstation 2 from my father. The waiting until Christmas part was fitting punishment for accidental snooping.

Some of the finest memories are just a jumble of similar situations though. Christmas Eve was the night my entire local family would gather at my maternal grandmother's house, and we'd all have a big meal and sit around chatting afterwards.

Then there's that one Christmas Eve when I asked my now-wife to marry me. I knew she'd say yes but there's always that little bit of fear about it. I wanted to ask when everyone I loved would be around.

Time sure flies. Both my father and my maternal grandmother have passed since the last time we all celebrated Christmas together.

brian-armstrong2• 2 years ago

The accidental gift finding is so funny. My dad got me a bike for Christmas one year. Of course it's really hard to hide a bicycle, and he put it alongside the side of our house in a part of the yard nobody ever went in. For whatever reason, I happened to be playing in that part of the yard and found it. I asked him why there was a bike stored out in our yard because I was not a very clever kid. In hindsight it's very funny to imagine his perspective on it.

jakebasile4• 2 years ago

I ended up telling him later in life and he just started laughing. He had no idea I'd found it!

matheusmoreira3• 2 years ago

Spending Christmas Eve with family is the best. Really cherish those moments. The pace of everyday life is so fast, it's easy to forget what's really important.

Merry Christmas.

jakebasile4• 2 years ago

Yes, they're the feeling of Christmas I remember most fondly.

throw-qqqqq2• 2 years ago

Truer words were never spoken!

I see my family too rarely because of the everyday hustle. I love the holidays for the slow pace, the long lunches and dinners. Talking about nothing and everything.

kaycebasques2• 2 years ago

Some of the finest memories are just a jumble of similar situations though.

This is how I feel about Xmas, thanks for putting it in words.

joemazerino2• 2 years ago

2001 was definitely the FF7 year. Played all 3 discs during the winter break.

deanmoriarty• 2 years ago

The year I got the original Gameboy, came with Tetris and Gargoyle's Quest. Must have been 1991 or so, was probably the happiest Christmas of my life. Incredible how I still vividly remember that morning, more than 30 years later. I opened the gifts and then we spent the day at my cousins’ eating and playing, I was the youngest among my cousins and it was so cool hanging out with them, slightly older kids, we stayed there from morning til midnight. What I wouldn’t do to live that day again, perhaps paying more attention to the adult conversations happening at the dinner table which I completely ignored as a young kid back then.

My parents have been so good and kind to me, we were never poor but money was always tight with my dad being a small business owner with some ups and many downs, and yet they never failed to provide memorable gifts when I was a kid. I was very happy back then, but just as an adult I came to appreciate the sacrifices they must have made for me.

delibaltas3• 2 years ago

Christmas of 1981 in Athens, Greece. I was 15. Father had died 3 years ago from heart attack at 42. His last words to my mother: "Educate the kids".

She did her best, given that my grandfather was old fashioned and had stopped her from going to school after she became twelve, although she was among the smartest in her class.

That Christmas she had bought me the brand new then Sinclair ZX81 personal computer. We were visiting the grandparents in a small village near Athens.

I spend the night by the fireplace with a small portable TV and the machine, typing in games published in the UK PC magazines of that time and occasionally watching the Chrstmas shows. Debugging my typos was the way I learned how programming works.

Nothing really interesting here, but I am remembering that night again and again so when I saw the prompt I felt I should share. Merry Christmas everyone.

kaonwarb• 2 years ago

A beautiful memory. I felt like I was sitting next to you, watching over your shoulder. Thank you for sharing.

monero-xmr• 2 years ago

1998 - my father had abandoned the family - I received a TI83 and the instruction manual. Spent literally a full week teaching myself TI83 Basic from that manual. It had everything necessary - variables, loops, functions. And I did it all hand-typing it in on the calculator keyboard!

throwaway2037• 2 years ago

What a great story, the perfect kind of HN post. Did Sinclair advertise in Greek... Or did your Grandma speak enough English to figure out what to buy?

delibaltas3• 2 years ago

I had seen advertisments in greek from the Greek importers of the brand. I had asked my mother for it and she delivered.

Since you asked for the greek market I can share one more memory. About a year later, 1982, I wanted to upgrade to Texas Instruments TI-99/4A so I tried to see a machine up close going to the local representative. I ended up at the "company's HQ" which was a small residence appartment in the fifth floor of a building.

I found the door open so I entered a room full with boxes thrown around randomely. After waiting alone for an awkward period of 5-10 minutes, the owner of the company himself emerges from the bathroom with a wet face and kind of surprised to see me. He listened to what I wanted. "It's somewhere there, go and have a look" it's all what he said. He couldn't care less.

13 years later I had my own small company and reselling PC and equimpent was part of the job. The man with the wet face was one of the biggest suppliers in Greece, since besides Texas Instruments he moved on to be the representative of Intel and Microsoft and reseller of many others and the company became on of the biggest in Greece.

Maybe his mentality ("there it is, go and have a look") never changed much though, because a couple decades later the company went bankrupt.

utopcell• 2 years ago

There definitely were ads for spectrums in Greece back then [1] but if I were to guess they were coming from local distributors rather than Sinclair.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/greece/s/N8djTsI1wC

nopakos• 2 years ago

Heartwarming story! Fellow Greek here. Also made my family take the Amstrad CPC and monitor to an 8 hours trip to the village.

ddgflorida• 2 years ago

I can identify with having a GREAT Christmas associated with a new computer. In my case, the same year, 1981, and a Radio Shack Color Computer, 16K Ram.

kapitar• 2 years ago

My dad got us an Atari 130 XE for Christmas back in the 80s.

On Christmas day, it ran a program which asked for our names (my sister or I) and then printed out a personalised message and small game.

Only years later did I really think about him setting up this program days or weeks before hand, learning to code it all in Atari Basic, for that big reveal on the day.

He always had menial blue collar jobs because of his working class Irish Catholic background, and he died before I really got into computers/dev later on in life, so I never really got to ask him about it.

Enjoy the day everyone and hopefully build up some nice family memories!

p0w3n3d3• 2 years ago

I remember my whole family playing golf on Atari 65XE - everyone: me, brother, dad and mom.

duckmysick2• 2 years ago

That is such an awesome story! Immediate favorite for me. Can relate to typing in the code published in the gaming magazines. Mine was with memory-editing the game values, albeit not on Christmas.

rawgabbit• 2 years ago

May you all find Peace and comfort this Christmas. I had a somewhat traumatic childhood but Christmas Eve was the one day I could count on to find solace. Despite the dysfunction of family, attending Christmas Mass and in later years watching the televised Christmas Eve mass from the Vatican was always a calming experience. God is love. We are his children, brothers and sisters. We may not understand the mystery of life. But we have faith in God whose mercy endures forever.

nozzlegear3• 2 years ago

Peace and comfort to you as well!

uncomplexity_• 2 years ago

lots of alcohol, cigarettes, and karaoke's

time is fleeting gents

RobRivera• 2 years ago

Ho ho ho Its christmas time (5 tabs open)

ethagnawl• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all.

I haven't used Ruby in about five years but I'm still looking forward to reading the release notes for 3.4(?) over coffee in the morning, as I've done every Christmas for about 15 years.

kurisufag• 2 years ago

just listening to the radio.

Spooky23• 2 years ago

When my son was three, we setup a particularly beautiful tree and our first big light display on our front porch (the tree was just inside the big bay window)

My wife and I were dead tired, and my son woke us up in a state of complete excitement. She headed downstairs to “check for elves” and prepare a few things, with me and kiddo at the top of the stairs.

When the elves were confirmed to have vacated, I went down, followed by my son. We somehow got him to wait for me to sit on the couch and then… he rounded the corner. My son started singing “deck the halls” The look of pure joy and innocence and excitement is a memory I will treasure forever.

We’ve since tragically lost my wife to cancer, and although he’s much older now, we maintain most of the little traditions and either still believe or pretend to each other to believe a few special aspects of our celebration. Christmas was my wife’s joy and we revere it in a unique way.

jamiek882• 2 years ago

That was beautiful, thank you.

tsumnia• 2 years ago

The year of the leopard print futon.

I thought I was the coolest kid in the world because my bed could fold up into a couch. Funny enough, I still sleep great on futons. These days if I lie down on a futon, go ahead and assume I'm about to take an hour long nap.

zoklet-enjoyer3• 2 years ago

Christmas is also my birthday. On my 30th birthday I ignored all of my friends and family and played Crash Bandicoot on PS4 all day. It was great.

nozzlegear3• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas and happy birthday!

zoklet-enjoyer3• 2 years ago

Thank you! :) Merry Christmas

samatman3• 2 years ago

I have a cousin who shares your birthday. Her name is Merry Noel.

Hope you're having a merry Noel as well. ^_^

LorenDB• 2 years ago

Sounds like a tragedeigh.

https://www.reddit.com/r/tragedeigh/

zoklet-enjoyer3• 2 years ago

Thank you and merry Christmas!

That's a great name. Do you know if Christmas was her mom's expected due date? Kind of wondering if they had the name planned before she was born or if they came up with it because she happened to come on xmas

codebaobab• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas, HN!

katamari-damacy• 2 years ago

[flagged]

jondwillis• 2 years ago

There’s still a lot more Christian than Muslim or Jewish people in the USA/YC-prone countries, as well as people that celebrate it in some way for cultural reasons. So, demographics and it isn’t actually about religion at all for a lot of people.

tempestn• 2 years ago

Yep, exactly. Very few of my friends are religious at all, but we all celebrate Christmas. Not as a religious holiday, but as a time that by tradition we spend time and share gifts and love with friends and family.

olalonde3• 2 years ago

Christmas is much more widely celebrated. Pretty much everyone in my family is atheist and we've always celebrated it. I'm in China right now and many of my Chinese friends are doing something for Christmas and wishing me "Merry Christmas", despite none of them being Christian. There are Christmas trees and decorations everywhere. It has become more of a cultural celebration than a religious one for many people around the world.

disambiguation• 2 years ago

Anyone can make a thread, maybe ask them why they choose not to?

michaelsshaw3• 2 years ago

Christmas is not about Jesus at all, it's the American red-and-green snowy holiday with family, Santa, gifts and drinking. It's not perceived as a religious holiday by most of us. If you want those other threads, then perhaps you should personally create them. I'm sure nobody here will be upset with that.

As an aside, the letter X a literal form of Jesus's name.

tyrd12io• 2 years ago

It's not perceived as a religious holiday by most of us - of course not when majority of them are christians. For rest of us its a religious holiday. by not acknowledging it as religious event, you are just ignoring people of other faiths.

burgerzzz2• 2 years ago

Do you post similar comments on other religious holidays?

let_me_post_0• 2 years ago

[flagged]

nraf• 2 years ago

Following your logic, Christianity would be not be inviting to those in Muslim-majority countries.

dcuthbertson• 2 years ago

Judaism is exclusive and you're not invited.

That's not strictly true. I suspect those that follow Orthodox and Ultra Orthodox Judaism are exclusive. However, those that follow Reform Judaism and the Conservative Movement support conversion to Judaism, so you are invited.

jyounker• 2 years ago

Christianity is uniquely welcoming in a way that neither Islam nor Judaism are.

That's not been my experience at all.

drmpeg• 2 years ago

For me, it was Christmas Eve 1968 and the reading of Genesis from Apollo 8. My parents had just bought their first color TV.

matheusmoreira3• 2 years ago

My favorite memories are from family gatherings. Christmas is a magical time that can really bring the family together. We used to have them a lot when I was a kid but they just kind of stopped as I got older. As though the magic was gone.

This year I got to experience this again and it made me so happy. Seeing my family together and happy, conflicts and troubles forgotten. It was a joy I hadn't felt in such a long time, I didn't know it was still possible.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

niag• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas!

This year, I’m flying solo. My wife and daughter are visiting family in India, and my mum’s spending the holidays with my younger brother and his family. With the house unusually quiet, I’ve decided to knock the rust off my frontend skills and catch up with all the new tooling.

Not a bad way to spend a quiet Christmas, really. Hope everyone’s having a lovely one, whether with family or a bit of peaceful coding!

pmarreck• 2 years ago

The Christmas our family got our first computer, a Mac 128k, stands out.

Also, the Christmas I got the Atari 2600.

29athrowaway4• 2 years ago

Creating the illusion that Santa exists and left gifts behind.

dirtybirdnj• 2 years ago

Growing up in NJ my family got together at my uncles place for Christmas, which also happens to be my cousin's birthday. I'm not sure if this was directly on the holiday but it WAS winter / snowy so we're gonna roll with it.

My dad had brought over a self-propelled walk behind snowblower to help my uncle clear a sidewalk in front of the house. My cousin and I were doing as kids did in the 90s, running around in the snow having fun when we made a discovery. A squirrel had not survived the cold and was frozen solid.

My dad and uncle had gone inside for some reason and left the snowblower unattended. We decided that it would be really funny if we put the squirrel in the snowblower chute, so that when they turned it on it would shoot out and we'd all have a good laugh.

Except that isn't what happened. The frozen squirrel blocked the auger mechanism from working correctly and after some very unpleasant noises some kind of belt or other part broke. The squirrel was not hilariously propelled across the sky as anticipated / desired.

My dad and uncle were PISSED, I am sure there was some fallout but it's gotta be one of my all time favorite holiday / winter shenanigans I've been involved with.

On a sad note, this is my first Christmas alone after going through divorce earlier this year. I hope you get to spend time with your loved ones, and I encourage you to remind them how you feel about them. You never know how much time you have left, so make the most of it. You have less than you think don't wait. Tell them now.

unethical_ban• 2 years ago

N64, Sega Genesis, Huffy bikes. Snow once, in the early 2000s in Houston.

It's a Wonderful Life each year.

More, but I'm tired, and it's Christmas! Merry Christmas all.

I remember real for trees as a kidm I haven't had one for five or more years now.

Not having the internet on Christmas. All is quiet.

Turn off news and social media on Christmas! Just respond to well wishes, that's fine.

johnxie• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone! My dad’s birthday is on Christmas, so it was always a double celebration. Growing up in Queens, we’d sometimes go to Atlantic City, taking a Greyhound or driving once we had a car. We’d head to Bally’s, enjoy the Christmas vibes, and spend hours at the buffet.

Those trips were always fun. This year, he’s in a rehab hospital on another continent after a stroke, but we’re all staying hopeful to celebrate together next year.

reynaldi• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas, Hacker News! Hope you’re staying cozy and enjoying time with loved ones.

gedy• 2 years ago

Christmas 1992 was in basic military training and for most people was a nice dinner and a break from the yelling. Our flight 083 was the unlucky ones picked for kitchen and cleaning duty... Cleaning old food out of a floor drain by hand on Christmas night was gross and humbling but has made the Christmases since all the more pleasant.

silisili• 2 years ago

My favorite memory as a kid was waking up in the middle of the night and seeing a large object covered in the living room, and thinking it was elves and I had to tip toe back to bed because my parents said they'd run off if they saw me. It was a Go-Kart, wrapped in a bed sheet. Great gift.

My favorite memory as an adult was filling the kid's stocking with nothing but bananas one year. She was 6. At first she was pretend excited because she likes bananas, but by the end she was digging, pulling them out one by one and saying 'aw man another banana' each time. She then asked us why Santa brought her so many bananas, and I had to pretend not to know through my tears of laughter.

She gets great gifts, just having a bit of fun. We put a banana on top of her stocking each year since, but she's old enough now to roll her eyes and sigh.

submeta• 2 years ago

Yesterday at the Christmas Vespers in Germany. A full church. The Christmas story is being told—about Jesus, about the Romans, about the darkness in the stable, and how the Christ child is born in Bethlehem. But no word about an ongoing Genocide in Palestine (the Pope says it‘s a genocide, all human rights orgs say it’s genocide). About Israel bombing Palestinians into pieces. Sick world.

Abdumaa• 2 years ago

Yeah, it feels deeply troubling to see this contrast. I wonder who the romans are today... The oppression affects all palestinians (not just muslims but also christians). Anyone staying silent about this suffering should feel ashamed.

jamieplex2• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas! Just remembering playing with our new Commodore 64, Christmas Day 1982. Good memories.

egeozcan2• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas! Mutlu Noeller! Frohe Weihnachten!

I was born in Istanbul, a sprawling, chaotic city that's a fascinating blend of thousands of cultures. Christmas was always a thing there, even under an Islamist regime. As a non-believer, I never cared much for religious holidays, but I did enjoy the cozy decorations and sipping Glühwein (mulled wine). Beyond that, it didn't mean much to me.

Now I live in Germany. My first Christmas here, back in 2009, was quite different. I was alone in a rented room provided by my employer, watching TV shows I couldn't understand on a tiny screen, just trying to pass the time. My laptop wasn't working (the charging cable was broken), and I was bored out of my mind.

Around 6 PM, there was a knock on the door. It was my employer, heading to a hippie-style gathering in the forest to celebrate Christmas. He figured I might be alone and decided to come in person since I hadn't answered my phone.

Of course, I said yes, and it turned out to be one of the most heartwarming experiences of my life. The group was incredibly kind, and even though I was the only foreigner, they went out of their way to make me feel included (switching to English when talking to each other, for example). The setting was magical: small fires inside carved logs, nature-themed decorations, and delicious food I'd never tasted before. I was so happy.

That day, my love for Germany grew a hundredfold.

Alex-Programs• 2 years ago

This is sweet. Thanks for sharing.

flawn• 2 years ago

I wonder which Islamist Regime you are referring to - the current one? :D

bloomingeek• 2 years ago

Wonderful!

jll293• 2 years ago

Thanks for sharing! And kudos to a boss who is also a friend - there are so many people far away from their loved ones, and therefore lonely, on what should be the happiest day of the year for all - so everyone, please remember who you could invite to share the enjoyment as described here.

freeone3000• 2 years ago

The last christmas I was able to spend with my dad's side of the family. My nieces and nephews gathered around the tree - absolutely spoiled rotten by their parents and their second cousin who had a tech salary and no responsibilities. Their faces when they were able to open the gifts of the sort I wish I could have had -- a robotics kit, a goo-making set, a diamond painting, a nintendo switch game. Being able to give them cool things that I hope they continued to enjoy for months to come. The feeling of sitting around a bonfire made of present-trash, beer in hand, talking about nothing. It's how I feel Christmas should be.

samanthasu• 2 years ago

I am Sam. And I wanna say 2024 is definitely a challenging year to me as I was laid off and a lot of changes in this year. My fav memory from Xmas would be the year of 2019, celebrating with my bff in winter wonderland, drinking, laughing, and we were really happy since we were still students with no worries at all. Wish time could go back

joisig• 2 years ago

Hi Sam! It will get better. Merry Xmas from Iceland :)

MarcusE1W3• 2 years ago

When you are down and in a hole, one small good thing is that it goes up in every direction. Merry Christmas Sam and a much better 2025.

egeozcan2• 2 years ago

Hi Sam! I usually just upvote comments on posts like these, but I wanted to tell you that things will get better. You'll have many more moments in the future that will warm your heart on the tougher days.

mau013• 2 years ago

Hi Sam!! Weather your storm. It will pass. Trust that you will find your way out of this. Merry Xmas from Spain :D

throw-qqqqq2• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas and best wishes from Denmark.

Your favorite memory warms my heart.

I hope 2025 brings you more luck than 2024 did.

pewpew_• 2 years ago

Sam, things always work themselves out for the better. You will be fine, keep moving forward.

Merry Christmas!

jamestdsmith• 2 years ago

This too shall pass. Life goes on and up. Many times I’ve felt that something bad happened to me. But a few years later I realise it was a blessing in disguise

Merry Christmas Sam

grumblepeet• 2 years ago

The few golden years when the kids were little, we’d all sit around the TV and play console games and when a hard bit came along, like a puzzle or a jump or a big boss with loads of guns, I’d be handed the controls to do the difficult bits. I got to be the family hero. We had great fun. A few years later, they all had way faster reaction times, and their own PC’s and games, and played them in their rooms. But for a few glorious Christmas’ we all came together and it was great. I miss those times, but on the other hand I helped them build their own PC systems, and set them off on the own paths. I helped them grow.

jadenPete• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas!

Up until I was about 10 years old, my family would drive to my grandparents’ house every year to celebrate Christmas Eve with my extended family. We’d track Santa using the NORAD Santa tracker (which, by coincidence, reports Santa being in San Francisco as I type this) and open presents from my grandparents.

One year, I got a Kindle Fire, which was the first computing device I called my own. Because I didn’t have my own computer and the family computer was usually being used, I did most of my early programming on the Kindle by downloading an app called AIDE that allowed me to compile Android apps on Android (of which the Kindle ran a modified version) and sideload them. By the time next Christmas had rolled around, I’d built my first complete Android application—a graphing calculator complete with support for basic algebraic expressions, trigonometric functions, and a page that explained what every supported mathematical function did and how it worked. I was so excited to show my cousins and grandparents.

russellbeattie• 2 years ago

"Why is the top bar of HN red? Oh yeah... It's Christmas."

- Me, pretty much every year.

Got my TRS-80 Color Computer 2 in 1981. Much of my entire life was shaped by that computer.

remarkEon• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas!

I don't actually have this memory, since I was 2 and a half years old.

My parents wanted to go back to South Dakota and have a proper "family" Christmas, with all of the cousins and all of the babies. Well, Christmas was had and then the temp dropped to -30°F. My parents scrambled to get me into the car and drove overnight from South Dakota back to Minneapolis to try and escape the storm.

antirez2• 2 years ago

Writing dump1090 in my parent's house :D Waiting for the only plane crossing the center of the Sicily during xmas time haha. In general, hacking here in Campobello di Licata at day, then at night finding all my friends, drinking with them till 4AM, then looping again: code -> gym -> drinking, all this in the background of staying with family.

ablation2• 2 years ago

You wrote dump1090? Wow. Thanks very much. You’ve brought me a lot of joy as a hobby. And merry Christmas.

antirez2• 2 years ago

So happy to hear that! Thank you :)

bigodbiel• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas All

ashitlerferad• 2 years ago

As a JW I never celebrated either. It’s strange because my wife is Lutheran and she’s probably the most excited adult about Christmas I’ve ever met. Bakes the Ham, turkey, Christmas PJs, Love Actually, Home Alones and gifts Christmas morning.

I love seeing her happy as much as I love food. So it works out. I don’t get involved beyond what I would do on a regular day which is be happy for her, have good conversation and banter and eat a lot of food.

People will say well if you are not active, what’s the big deal? Well, It’s like how parents might give advice when you’re younger and some of it you outgrow or choose not to follow as you become an adult, but certain lessons stick with you for life because they feel fundamentally true. They become part of who you are. For me, not celebrating Christmas is like this. Even though I’m not actively practicing as a Jehovah’s Witness, that teaching still aligns with my values and feels like the right thing to continue avoiding it. It’s also a sign of respect and a nod to my beliefs.

bibelo• 2 years ago

Hi bro

snozolli2• 2 years ago

and a nod to my beliefs.

You could have just said that you're still a believer. Not being 'active' doesn't mean anything if you're still a believer.

I don't know why you'd refuse to embrace the joy of Christmas in your situation. Self-denial and suffering aren't noble virtues, contrary to what religion loves to tell people. It's okay to enjoy things.

MarcusE1W3• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas everyone.

Every year it reminds me how I eventually became an IT professional.

My parents took us children to the village restaurant before Christmas. Must have been 1983. Then we were asked what we wish for Christmas and I had not really thought about that, yet. Some of my friends have been talking about a computer. I had no idea what exactly that meant or what to use it for but it sounded cool. Computer. Also I knew that the brand was Commodore.

So when asked what I want for Christmas I said "A Commodore computer".

The next day it dawned on me that it might be a good idea to find out what my Christmas wish actually was. In a toy catalog I found a Commodore C64 computer and decided that must be my Christmas whish. I started collecting the limited info that was publicly availabe about computer.

In a proper Christmas story I would get my C64 and live happily ever after. But my parents were not sure if such an expensive present should be bought.

My mother found a book about the basics of Computers though and I got that later for birthday. Now I really wanted one. I sometimes took a 30 min. Bus ride to the neighbour university town and there was a department store with a computer department and you were allowed to try them. So all you had to do is use the book to prepare some BASIC programme at home in paper. Take the bus, find a free computer in the store, key the programme in, hope that it works on that version of BASIC and you had a programme.

2 years later my parents seemed convinced that I really wanted a computer and got me a C128. Much better BASIC for structured programming. And from then I happily lived ever after. Or so.

yodsanklai• 2 years ago

Was going to share a very similar story, I got my first computers for Christmas. We got first a C64 which got me into "programming", but I think it was the Amiga which made me the happiest. It was such an upgrade compared to the C64.

Whenever I feel stress, overworked, or frustrated with colleagues as an IT professional, I remember what got me into programming and all the fun I had with these computers.

MarcusE1W3• 2 years ago

The Amiga was my second computer too. And I have spend all my money on the M2 Modula 2 compiler.

Then I could do computer school homework in M2 on my Amiga and just had to translate it to Turbo Pascal in school to submit it :-)

michaelsbradley• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas

Christus natus est

O Χριστός γεννιέται

Христос раждается

המשיח נולד

ابن الله يولد اليوم

codetrotter• 2 years ago

One of my favorite memories is Christmas year 2000, when I was with my father and my grandparents on his side, and my father had bought a PlayStation 2 for me. Me and him stayed up long playing Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy.

We were a bit scared to even stop playing, because we didn’t have any memory card to save progress on at first. But we left the console powered on over night and resumed playing the next day, and did the same for the next few days and then my father went and bought a memory card so we could save the progress.

Good times :)

FlyingSnake• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas

Feliz Natal

नाताळच्या हार्दिक शुभेच्छा!

As a kid born on X’mas eve, Christmas has been special to me, even in the dusty provincial non-Christian town of Central India.

After moving to Germany, and having a kid, I appreciate Christmas (Weihnachtsferien) even more nowadays. What a wonderful season of festivity

May this festival season bring happiness and joy to you and your loved ones.

noufalibrahim• 2 years ago

I don't celebrate it but I do have a memory.

It was at my first job and first time away from home. I was single and so was a colleague from work.

There was no one in the office that night. So we installed unreal tournament, played "mistress of Christmas" out loud, ordered in some food from a nearby restaurant and played a lan game till past midnight. Then we went home.

germandiago• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas. Feliz Navidad. Bon Nadal.

Back at the end of eighties and beginning nineties I used to go to my uncle and aunt (my mom's immediately old sister) home and I would spend time with my cousins, from which three of them were orphans. Fortunately the family could take care of everyone.

I would spend time with one of my orphan cousins (we are just one year apart) and my older sister playing some games like hide and seek around the house, I was hardly 7-8 yo.

My uncle and aunt are not among us anymore but at least I keep nice memories.

This was in Spain. Currently I am in Asia.

xenocratus• 2 years ago

For some reason a lot of my memories from early days are lost (despite not being that far back), but I do fondly remember us visiting some neighbours, playing Monopoly with the kids of the household (good friends at the time, that I've since long lost contact with) until late, then getting back home to find presents under the tree. I've now forgotten what the presents were, but vividly remember my mum leaving to "get something from the flat" as we were playing :)

Crăciun fericit! I can only hope for more peace in the world for the next year.

t43562• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas everyone! Thanks for this great website where it is possible to have intellectual discussions no matter what odd and lonely place one might be living in. :-)

I have had to recreate Christmas for my family on my own - my wife is Turkish and although she is not highly religious (especially about food!) it was not a "thing" for her for most of her life.

When I was living in Istanbul with her, Christmas was just another working day although I noticed a somewhat wistful attitude - people who sort of wished to join in but felt they were on the outside. The occasional Christmas tree. It was very odd for me. I couldn't surmount those odds and I also had never had to be the initiator. When my mum died years and years ago, everything died.

Back in the UK it's easier and I have a daughter so I HAVE to make it happen. I'm not that good at it but today my daughter, without telling me, filled my christmas stocking :-) So the bug has caught on. :-)

Now it's time to have breakfast and open presents from under the tree.

I wish a very joyful day to everyone. I risk controversy by saying that Christmas was not originally a religious festival and whatever religion you are, you're not excluded from enjoying it. It was a "middle-of-winter" party and I think it was to keep Northern Europeans spirits up at the darkest time of the year. That it has turned into "good will to all men" is great but it isn't owned by any church.

sim7c00• 2 years ago

I dont like christmas atall. no good memories. i tried to escape it by marrying a muslim but now she wants to celebrate too. god i wish today was over already and i just woke up. merry christmas everyone <3

maz1b• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all celebrating!

aszantu• 2 years ago

Just realized, i only have one. Eating with a stranger at xmas eve in the netherlands. We were both avoiding our families because we both hate to be around fam around xmas.

omnee• 2 years ago

So many beautiful stories. Merry Christmas Everyone!

herbst• 2 years ago

Spending my Christmas in a caravan somewhere way south of Spain, in a quiet remote corner with only my favourite 2 people (including my dog). No presents, no family dinners. Definitely the best Christmas for a long while.

wyclif• 2 years ago

For me it was Christmas 1977 when me and my little brother got an Atari 2600 console. We spent almost the entire day (except for taking a break for meals) playing all the variations of Combat.

Later, in 1980, I bought Adventure with my paper route money and I had hours of fun playing that and trying to figure it out. When I finally found the Warren Robinette-created easter egg, I was ecstatic. Unfortunately, even though I was a huge fan of Adventure, it is the type of action-adventure game that when you solve the quest you quickly lose interest.

1980 was probably peak Atari 2600. By 1982, with the release of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the game was so terrible and rushed to market so quickly and was so obviously shovelware that I moved on from the platorm.

I miss those days though. More than anything else the Atari 2600 was what got me into learning BASIC a few years later on the TRS-80 and the IBM PC.

JoeAltmaier2• 2 years ago

Funny you should mention ET. It was indeed shovelware, Howard's group was challenged to get a movie-tie-in game out in 12 weeks and he volunteered. Worked like a slave to get something that looked like a game, had at least one play mechanic, titles and animation! All with a tiny processor with negligible memory that had to turn the electron beam on and off in timing loops. Still proud that he got anything at all that worked. Proud of the notoriety as well, Howard is like that!

Now he's a family counselor, a good one too. I see him a couple times a month at Movie Night, another old friend hosts those and we get good attendance even though we haven't worked together for forty years.

Merry Christmas!

JoeAltmaier2• 2 years ago

I remember my Hindu-Jewish Christmas. I was working at a startup in the midwest. We hired lots of graduated students, including one from Israel and one from Bangalore India. They were curious about Christmas so we invited them to come to ours!

Two young kids under 10, a new house in the country and perfect weather. They arrived, and since they had heard about the gift-giving part they brought gifts! For the family, way nicer than they had to for a hostess gift but exclamations all around and thanks and we use that giant red baking pot to this day.

The Indian lad was just married and she was so curious and funny and happy to be with family - they had found America to be so quiet and empty! To be in a full house again with kids and noise and decorations and ceremony - she was ecstatic.

We introduced all the foods (my wife was a champ and had come up with things everybody could eat! A Christmas miracle in itself) and the trappings (lights and trees and drinks and songs) and had a lovely loud silly evening.

Later, each of those co-worker mentioned independently that though they'd lived in America for years, that was the very first time they'd been invited into an American's home. They were so grateful. Even today, thirty years later, I can call either of those guys and be greeted like an old Uncle.

So yeah, I remember that one from time to time and smile.

michaelhoney• 2 years ago

I’m six years old: we’re travelling and our family is in London staying in a hotel. I watch Speed Racer on television on Christmas Eve, and they jump over a gap and something clicks and I “get” momentum. That night the anticipation is almost unbearable and I pretend to sleep as my parents set out presents. In the morning we get up and the best present I get is a junior science encyclopaedia. That day the weather is terrible, so we stay inside and read and we order chicken sandwiches from room service.

shannifin• 2 years ago

Christmas 1996, I was 11. We finally got a modern computer with Windows 95, a CD-ROM drive, speakers, Oregon Trail 2... It was magical! The only time I ever wept with joy over a Christmas present.

frereubu• 2 years ago

Christmas in 1982/3 in the UK, I was praying desperately for a ZX Spectrum so I could play Manic Miner like my nephews (who, due to a generational slip were more like my cousins) and was genuinely crushed when I opened my present to find that it was a BBC Micro Model B. The horror! Although Elite did make up for quite a bit of that, the game scene on the BBC was so much worse (or at least it felt so) and I ended up copying code by hand for games from magazines, which I'm pretty sure was what my parents intended. Fast forward to now, and I'm running a successful web agency, having worked my way through various internet-related jobs in interesting organisations like the BBC, universities and others. So a belated and slightly begrudging thanks to my dad and mum for their foresight.

sangeeth96• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas y'all!

andyjohnson0• 2 years ago

I was born in the late 60s so none of my childhood Christmas memories involve digital technology. But a memory that stands out was the year that I got a telescope for Christmas.

I was maybe about ten. It was fairly average refractor on a wooden tripod but, growing up in an environment where things like that weren't the norm, I didn't understand that at the time.

On Christmas day my family, my aunts and uncles and cousins, would all cram themselves into my grandparent's small council house for Christmas dinner. Then the kids would play with their toys and try not to get stood on by the slighly tipsy adults. Too many people in too small a space, but I have happy memories.

When it got dark, that time, I took my new scope out into my grandparent's small front garden to look at the moon and try (unsuccessfully as I remember) to locate a planet. It was very cold, and people wandering past kept asking me what I was doing. I could hear everyone indoors talking and laughing. Eventually it started to snow very lightly, so I packed up and stood watching the snow for a while and then went back indoors.

That was amost fifty years ago, but I remember how my universe suddenly got hugely bigger that day. And the snowflakes coming down in the dark.

I passed the telescope on to five year old friend a few years ago. I don't know what she makes of it though: she can get images from the Hubble and James Webb on her tablet, if she wants.

Merry Christmas everyone.

4dregress• 2 years ago

Merry Xmas, I hope you all have a great day!

sneak• 2 years ago

1991. I received a Super Nintendo on Christmas morning at age 7. Within minutes I was playing the single bundled game on a large Trinitron CRT in the living room.

It’s more than 30 years later and I still regard SMW as the best video game ever made.

taatparya• 2 years ago

At our company, we celebrated Christmas today exchanging gifts despite not having a single Christian person in our staff.

One of the junior introverted female developer was coaxed into being the Santa for gift distribution. She really shines as Santa and thoroughly enjoyed it. What's more, she even coaxed others to dance while accepting the gift and everybody has a good time.

My most memorable so far.

p0w3n3d3• 2 years ago

My best/funniest Christmas memory time was when there was a huge cold outside, so the ice froze some antenna cables together. Not sure what was the physics behind it, but the result was I got a cable television in our TV even despite we didn't pay for it. I could watch many foreign channels, except for cartoon network which was on the same channel as another channel from terrestrial, hence these were overlaying together and not possible to watch. Later when the freezing cold faded away, we bought the cable and I could better learn English from watching Cartoon Network and as a result now I can work as a software engineer

monkeydust• 2 years ago

Getting a Nintendo NES with Super Mario 3, was probably 10 :-p

Wasserpuncher• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas!

zulban• 2 years ago

1992 my family just got a VCR but hardly had any tapes. For some reason my sister and brother were obsessed with Home Alone and as the youngest and a toddler, I played along with the excitement. My dad set up "some new movie" to play in our basement but said he couldn't get Home Alone, saying it cost too much, sorry. We eagerly watched the title intro which in retrospect, was obviously Home Alone. Once the oldest sibling finally read "Home Alone" we all completely lost our minds.

We even have this whole thing on video.

DoctorOetker• 2 years ago

Is there going to be a 2024 Donald Knuth Christmas Lecture?

dgan• 2 years ago

When i arrived in France, i couldn't help but notice that people celebrate New Year ar 25 December instead of 1st January. eventually, after learning the language, I understood that it is actually another thing altogether!

devilbunny• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas indeed. Even if you’re not Christian. The holiday has become larger than the religion, and I think that is something Jesus would have liked. His point was always love.

SchwKatze• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas! I love this community, hope you all enjoy this time

borski• 2 years ago

Happy Hanukkah as well! It starts tonight. :)

tasty_freeze4• 2 years ago

I grew up in a family with eight kids. Mom was stay at home and Dad did well, but with eight kids each individual kid received a few mostly modest presents.

When I was in college and home for Thanksgiving, my folks invited everyone out to dinner. After ordering, my dad would often introduce a topic of discussion that we'd bat around until the food came. That year he said: if you didn't need to worry about money or success, what other career path might you find interesting. Without much thought I said, I'd like to play electric bass, due to the fact that when I listened to albums, I was really mostly following the bass. I don't even recall what my other siblings said.

On Christmas day there were the usual gifts: socks and underwear, a couple of new shirts, and a book or two. But after that was all done, my dad said: tomorrow when the music store is open, let's go buy a bass. It was a $200 hondo (a fender p-bass knockoff) and a 15 watt Crate amp. What an extravagant gift! I'm 60 now and still playing, though never professionally. :-)

bradleyy• 2 years ago

I also play electric bass, and love this story. The real question is: do you still have the Hondo?

tasty_freeze4• 2 years ago

No, the hondo is long gone. After college, when I had a job, I bought a much better bass. I don't have any recollection what I did with the hondo. It would have been the mid to late 80s, so there was no craigslist to sell it.

That hondo had action so high I needed to attach a parachute to each note I played.

zoomablemind• 2 years ago

...That year he said: if you didn't need to worry about money or success, what other career path might you find interesting.

Such a wise way to both elicit ideas and encourage introspection. Very inspiring!

fumeux_fume• 2 years ago

My fondest memories of Christmas are from childhood when we’d spend Christmas eve and day at my grandparents house in Pasadena with my aunts and uncles and their families. The kids usually shared a few rooms and in the morning our stockings would be hung on the doorknobs so we could entertain ourselves silly putty, highlights magazines, and slinkies while the adults slept in. However, the Christmas gift I’ll never forget was my first DVD player. It was a discounted Proscan model, but still cost a bundle back when VHS was the dominant format. While fiddling with the menu for The Matrix, I stumbled upon the commentary track which I had no understanding of. I finally pieced together that I was listening to the directors talk about the movie as they watched it, as if we were in the same room together. This kinda blew my mind and set me down a path at a young age of appreciation for movies as an art form and dialogue between artist and viewer rather than just passive entertainment.

darepublic• 2 years ago

Waking up at 5 in the morning and playing shareware computer games on our IBM 286 with my sister. My dad discovering this and joining us.

maxcruer• 2 years ago

Too bad I had to be in the hospital :(

Unbeliever69• 2 years ago

The one thing that really stands out about Christmas growing up was how amazing my dad was at giving gifts that sparked my curiosity about the world. Instead of focusing on toys and games, he often chose books (scientific) and kits (RadioShack). While today you can easily find gifts that combine fun and learning, growing up in the '70s and '80s, it was usually one or the other. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy a good toy or game—they could also stimulate imagination and creativity—but it was the books and kits that truly shaped who I would become.

I also had an aunt who loved giving magazine subscriptions. Thanks to her, I had long-running subscriptions to Discover, Scientific American, Omni, and later BYTE. And, of course, the most important one of all: Dungeon!

hypertexthero• 2 years ago

The Snowman, 1982, with original introduction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjMNtEKHURU

corytheboyd• 2 years ago

A simple one!

One year it was just my parents and I for Christmas. None of us are that big on elaborate gift giving, we just want to see each other. Unknowingly we had all purchased some form of booze for one another, so we spent the evening chatting with libations by the fire, it was wonderful :)

nickpsecurity• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas, Hacker News!

Today is a day made for celebrating the birth of Christ. Later, a tradition of giving gifts and spending time with family. I pray God blesses you in each of these things.

If anyone here is unfamiliar with what Christmas is, this page has links explaining the birth of Christ and why it’s one of history’s greatest events:

https://www.desiringgod.org/topics/the-birth-of-christ

octopoc• 2 years ago

Actually gift giving at the winter solstice far predates Jesus. For instance the tradition of Santa coming down the chimney comes from a time in Britain when there was a terrible snowstorm and the poor people were starving. The Druids had food to give them but couldn’t get in the doors because the snow was so deep. So they sent the food down the chimneys!

Having said that, merry Christmas!!

gosub100• 2 years ago

Christmas '98, my mom went to the local computer tech and bought me the 166mhz MMX CPU. I was stoked (but admittedly a little bit frustrated it wasn't the 233mhz). As silly as this seems, the black lacquered laminate (instead of the gray ceramic on my 133mhz or 100mhz or whatever I had) made me feel like I went from a nova to a corvette. I fondly remember getting excited about that kind of stuff. Also that same year, my first intro to 3D, playing motocross madness with my highschool friend on my (or probably his) new voodoo 3DFX card. It was magical.

Tepix• 2 years ago

Indeed, seeing the 3dfx in action for the first time was super magical.

jonpurdy• 2 years ago

Growing up celebrating Xmas in Canada resulted in me dreading the month before with Xmas music and decorations everywhere. As an adult I love that I can mostly choose not to celebrate (aside from parents and inlaws). Even living in Korea I avoided the celebrations but couldn’t avoid the decorations.

But I do really enjoy one single thing about the holidays: the VLC icon getting a Santa hat a couple of weeks before Dec 25.

VLC has been doing this as long as I can remember (earlier than 2005?) and it’s literally the one thing I look forward to for the holidays.

jjtheblunt• 2 years ago

I’m secular and Xmas for us meant unbounded time in the snow after possibly fun toys when little, as the Santa thing we knew as Santa far more than anything religious.

kaycebasques2• 2 years ago

Merry Xmas everyone.

PS1 has got to be my most memorable gift. That loading screen is burned into the OLED of my subconscious.

I like how jakebasile put it though:

Some of the finest memories are just a jumble of similar situations though.

Archetypical Xmas AM is me, my brother, and my mom. It was always a huge exercise of my willpower to wait for my brother (5 years older, lifelong night owl) to wake up. My single mom would always lavish us in gifts. We were relatively poor in our area; Xmas was the day she made us feel as wealthy as kings. I later learned that she sometimes racked up huge credit card debt to give us this experience. I haven't done an Xmas tree for myself in years but when our baby comes I will for sure revive that magical experience for her. In the late AM we would drive over to my aunt/uncle/cousins and enjoy bagels, talk about the gifts we got, and watch movies. Everyone stayed in cozy pajamas all day, I think that's a small but important part of why this day often felt different.

In later years Xmas Eve is now my fondest jumble of memories. Growing up, we did not have people at the house. I resented my mom's antisociality a bit. But then one year, the family member who usually hosted Xmas Eve said they were tired of it. Quite the surprise to everyone when my mom said she would host the next party! She's now been hosting it for 10+ years and it's always a good time every year. I'm very proud of her for coming out of her shell and being the sturdy/reliable anchor that brings the family together every year.

blowsand• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas!

parentheses• 2 years ago

First "proper" Christmas in the US (7 years after moving here) where I got Quake III Arena. It sparked a life long love of programming that has yet to subside.

As a non Christian immigrant, my parents did their best to understand and embrace the "good parts" of Christmas. We went from just having dinner to now exchanging presents and spending time together as a family. My wife is from the US and grew up with Christmas being a very big deal (and lavish with presents). She took it to the next level once we got together. Now, with kids, it's taken on a new life.

So, I guess my real answer: Christmas just gets better every year. I hope it continues to for me and does for all of you!

Good health, wealth and tidings to all of you - kindred spirits from all around the world!

snozolli2• 2 years ago

Sometime between maybe '79 and '83, there was a particularly memorable Christmas. We drove across the state to my grandparents' huge ranch home (I visited the new owners as an adult, turns out it was a normal-sized house). Waking up on Christmas morning with all my cousins, aunts, and uncles there, anxiously waiting while Grandpa built a fire in the fireplace, absolutely dying to finally open presents. Some adult walked in dressed as Santa to hand out presents and I never did figure out who it was.

ddingus• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas!

Thank all of you for being here and for the most part, being real.

We are a fundamentally good crowd.

Be nice to one another please. It counts in this world. A world where guilty pleasures like this one we share are seemingly on the way out, back filled with soulless places nobody really cares about.

rvba• 2 years ago

Building the plastic christmas tree.. with my cat.

First taking out the branches from the top shelves of the closet. What was supervised by her - every branch had to be checked and smelled. After the branches were remowed she would laudly meow to be put on the shelf. For inspection.

Then she would demand to be taken down (or would jump out with a loud thud) and lie down on a branches.

Finally after some discussion the christmas tree could be build. She would supervise the whole process, look at the lamps, inspect the decorations with paws and lie observing them. Happy meows and loud purrs all the time.

Then she would lie near the christmass tree in triumph.

I miss my cat. She was very friendly and talkative

doormatt• 2 years ago

I'm sorry for your loss - cats can be the most loving creatures imaginable.

sebastian_z• 2 years ago

A joyous Christmas to everyone. Calling on Mary is voluntary [1].

[1] https://genius.com/Aimee-mann-calling-on-mary-lyrics.

soulofmischief2• 2 years ago

I don't have many good Christmas memories, so I would probably say my favorite is when I received Pokémon Gold and a Gameboy Color at age 5. That game opened up a lot for me and had a huge influence on my life, philosophy and career.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Hug 'em if you got 'em.

joemazerino2• 2 years ago

Having the extended family over and the boys would all be playing outside until the street lights came on, and then inside to play whatever game came out. Clay fighter, mortal kombat, donkey kong country etc.

My family would pull straws to see which man would dress up as Santa clause and go door to door on my street to greet kids and give the adults some baileys or whiskey.

Great times. Merry Christmas.

formerlurker• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas to you too!

jll293• 2 years ago

A very happy Christmas memory was from when I was sick with measles as a kid (perhaps aged 5?), wrapped in many layers of blankets on my grandparents' sofa, watching the Christmas tree and listening to everyone's conversation and Christmas songs on TV. Despite being slightly feverish and covered with red dots all over, I was the most happy child.

The most _nerdy_ Christmas was when I returned to my mom's house as a student (probably Chris Rea playing when I rode home on the train.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDt3u2Ev1cI ), and the only kit within reach there was an old Atari ST 520+ with a copy of Berkeley Yacc (Bison) on 3.5" floppy disk next to it. I happened to have an (unrelated) machine learning paper in my backpack, so I dedided to reimplement the paper in Yacc on this ancient machine, which was most gratifying (no man pages, no Web, no StackExchange, ...).

thr0waway001• 2 years ago

MERRY CHRISTMAS YO!

prydt• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas!

WarOnPrivacy• 2 years ago

My (14yrs older) brother stared a business on the back of our rural property and later build a home on acreage next door. The biz was a mixed bag for my mom and us. I had steady work from 9-19 (along w/ all of my friends) but all the peace and quiet went away.

That slowly became a schism between our already chaotic households (his wife, my mom) It culminated with him buying my 100yo birth home, suddenly evicting us and then razing the house to make sure we never returned. I was 19 and homeless. Also, my mom had terminal cancer.

Nevertheless, my best Christmas memory is just me and my brother and a walk in the woods. There isn't much to it other than an exceptional moment where having a brother felt like a good thing.

When I was 16, we (Wash DC region) had a rare white Christmas. My brother called the house early and invited me to walk. No families, just us, the snow and the woods (the land was my childhood and is all gone now). Mostly he called me because he had coke and wanted company. (His wife didn't know; he did quit after.)

For that hour or so, we were happy and unburdened by everything we'd ever done to each other. The morning felt like a gift. Probably our last one.

ninjamayo• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas to everyone! I've read a few great stories in here and thought of sharing mine. My childhood Christmas were never that special unfortunately and during my teen years, life was pretty tough. But I do have great memories from all the Christmas I had my wife over the past 20 years. We established a lot of Christmas traditions for our families, since I never had any from my childhood to share. Actually we just finished watching the Raiders of the Lost Ark and spent two hours talking about great cinema and of course me playing the Indiana Jones game from Lucasarts. Oh wish, I could get back in time and play that game for the first time. Not quite the same playing it these days, the magic unfortunately is gone.

So yeah today was a great Christmas day! All the best to the HN community.

loumf• 2 years ago

I took digital electronics when I was in high school. Some classmates wrote a version of “The 12 Days of Christmas” except with names of chips instead of the usual gifts.

The only line I can remember is “Five 555s”

v8xi• 2 years ago

Christmas 1999 my father's business had just gone under when the banks stopped lending after the dot com bubble. We didn't have any presents until Christmas morning when our church dropped off a bunch of presents for us. We got a Razor scooter and I spent all day riding it downstairs. I just got my daughter a scooter and she's doing the same this year :)

thomasfromcdnjs• 2 years ago

My friend brought over a blow up pool and beers. Took us 6 hours before we realized we both had our shorts on backwards.

Yawrehto• 2 years ago

Have a merry Christmas, wonderful Hannukah, and, if you're atheist, a wonderful…birthday of Isaac Newton?

weishigoname• 2 years ago

Merry Christmas! every Christmas is memorable when family gather together and share what changed during this year.

ngcc_hk• 2 years ago

Wish all well. Silence night after then gift opening (sorry the argument to wait for boxing days lost)

TL;dr.

No need like the communist china to object to Xmas so much that is it since 2023 (?) say silence night should be used to remember those soliders they sent to fight in North Korea against USA army, mostly died due to freezing cold and anyway many are not pla but nationalist surrender soldiers.

Let us have a little kindness, even if atheists or communists. Fir one second.

dusted• 2 years ago

Christmas of 1996, a ten year old boy was spending christmas day in front of his TV, connected to it was his Commodore 64. The boy was angry and sad, and ashamed of being angry and sad, because his parents couldn't afford to buy him a PC, he knew it was an unreasonable wish, and he knew he could not get it. He was ashamed of his sadness and anger over not being able to get a PC (it was all he'd ever wanted since he was 6 years old), and so he didn't want to participate in the christmas dinner, he just wanted to be left alone in his dark and sad room and play Kickstart 2. He knew he was a little brat for feeling so, but alas he couldn't help himself, he felt like the future was rushing past without him.

After much convincing from his patient grandmother, the boy finally participated, his parents knew he had a hard time, and they told him that there was a present for him before the dinner (in our tradition, we open presents on christmas eve, after the dinner), so he thought they were taking pity on him, he said no, he didn't want any presents.

They asked him softly to consider it again, and he heard something in their voices and a feeling of intense shame came over him, he saw the giant boxes, inside it, a brand new PC, gifted from a wealthy, but distant relative who "thought it might be healthy for the boys development of his interest". He cried, out of shame, and out of happiness, and he grew up so much in those moments, to feel so undeserving and yet grateful. That computer was with him the next 6 years, a 100 mhz pentium, 16 mib of RAM, 814 mib (fat32 formatted) harddisk, 4x CD rom drive. 14" color monitor, windows 95, 3 button logitech ps/2 mouse, and ESS AudioDrive sound card(soundblaster 100% compatible). On that machine, he learned so much, and when he trashed it, there was nobody to help him format it, so in time, he figured it out, by trail and error, how to format and reinstall windows and drivers. What a time to be alive. That computer was upgraded with a Voodoo card, a CD burner, an ISA network card (he dragged it to many LANs at friends houses and at the local youth club), at some point 32 mib ram was added too. That machine sits behind me right now, still fully functional. It's not an understatement to say that that experience formed me as a human being, as well as helped shape my future and career, having unlimited and unrestrained access to a computer as a kid probably saved my life in more ways than one. So that is one of my favorite christmas memories.

gsch1• 2 years ago

Growing up in South Brazil, my childhood was filled with tropical vibes. I remember the sweltering heat, with temperatures often between 29-35°C. Santa Claus, dressed in winter clothes, would be sweating and nearly fainting. Our holiday meals were a unique mix of turkey and barbecue, and the adults always had plenty of beer. It was always a big family reunion, with 15-30 people gathering together. Crazy to think about it.

jamexcb• 2 years ago

I received an empty, small blue plastic toolbox. For me, it was the most amazing thing because now I had my own toolbox, like my father and i could add anything to it. I still have that box. I love it.

nikolay• 2 years ago

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                                                                                  |_|                                     |_____|

Quinzel• 2 years ago

My favourite memories from Christmas were this year! I grew up as a poor kid. Christmas was kind of hard every year. I know my mum did try to make it special but more often than not, I just felt disappointed as a kid. I had no belief in things like Santa, or God, tooth fairy’s or Easter bunnies because even as a kid, I found it difficult to believe that these imaginary figures would randomly choose to favour some kids over others for what felt like no apparent reason. Then as an adult, for my own kids, I did what my mum tried to do and I did my best, but still, Christmas was often disappointing and stressful and I often had to choose between celebrating Christmas or paying my bills. So I stopped celebrating it all together, opting instead to just give my kids a bit of cash and take then shopping on Boxing Day. Then this year in general I took bigger risks, made bigger sacrifices, and I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily been easier but I actually made enough money to make ends meet and then some. We did Christmas, and I invited over my family, and the guy I’ve been dating. There was cliche Christmas games, family banter, my kids got heaps of presents from relatives and it was just the first Christmas I remember having where I didn’t feel stressed. I felt actual joy. And then for a few days after I just felt relaxed and content, enjoying my massive amount of time off work because as fate would have it, I didn’t lock in any contracts over Christmas, and I think if I had I would have worked it, but I think the universe gave me a gift this year which was just being able to spend time with my family without feeling an impending sense of doom. Magical.

Merry Christmas Everyone

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