What, if anything, are you doing in games over the holiday?

Some of us don’t really celebrate Christmas all that much, whether because it’s not a holiday for us or because we have personal reasons for not celebrating. My mom died in 1990, and until I married in 2006, I didn’t celebrate a single Christmas — without her, I didn’t have any reason to, ultimately. I still keep it fairly quiet. But for some of us, Christmas is a time where we’re home, we have new computer equipment, and we might as well play some games. And for others, it’s a time when the whole world seems to be shut down and our Nightborne Mage might as well catch up on some WQs.

I know that over the years, I used gaming to help compensate for the loneliness of not really having any family or support structure at a time when the world is blaring out that I should be happy and celebrating instead of what I am, which is an utter mess who misses people I can’t have back and doesn’t know what to do with myself. It’s often a lot easier to pretend to be a hooved alien on the run from demons for tens of thousands of years instead of looking over the reality of the situation, and it’s not like I can really go anywhere when almost everything is closed, so playing World of Warcraft definitely seems better than just stewing in my own loneliness.

Plus, even if you do celebrate, like I said, some folks are going to get a new computer or a new console and there are plenty of games on those which people may well have not been picking up due to the whole “Don’t buy yourself X during the Christmas lead-up” thing. I remember being specifically told not to buy Diablo 3 for the Xbox One for that reason, and not for the reason that it’s a real tone shift. Then again, if you don’t celebrate for personal reasons, maybe that’s your thing?

Anyway. If you do celebrate, have a lovely day. If you don’t, I still hope you have a lovely day.