The holidays can be a joyous time, but also a stressful time. This holiday season has been particularly stressful for me, since I’m on the job market and pretty much in flux for the next few months about where I will work, buy a house, and live next year and likely for the next many, many years. Plus, of course, I got a wicked flu over the break, which didn’t help the stress. However, all of this made me realize one of my favorite things, though often an unsung hero, in gaming: escaping. Games are a wonderful escape. I know that is supposed to be something I’m ashamed of, something that people use to criticize gaming (“it’s not real” “it’s an escape from reality”). I’d like to think that a crucial part of maintaining my mental health throughout my PhD program has been my ability to completely shut off work and turn on something fun. Gaming has always been a successful catalyst for this.
This holiday season was no different. I gamed pretty much from Thanksgiving until my writing of this blog (I know I missed my blog the last 2 weeks; thanks for not giving me crap fellow NYMG writers). I got new games, and I played some old ones as well. I thought for my post this holiday season, I would talk about some of the games I played and the people I played them with.
Without a doubt my biggest game conspirator this year was my nephew Gabe. I introduced him to Pokémon. He introduced me to Mario and Luigi’s Dream Team. We both got Paper Mario Sticker Star for Christmas, and we played that like crazy together (he is a lap sitting gamer, btw, which is new for me). I secretly looked up walkthrough information on my iPhone and then told him what to do next like I was some kind of all-knowing gaming seer (that game is hard!). Since I’ve lived in Indiana for the past 5 years, I have missed out on getting to know him. But this Christmas, and all of our overlapping gaming, really helped. Plus I remember being the weird kid with a Nintendo Club t-shirt (ok I took it from my brother). Asking people to sit next to me while we both played our game boys never made me a ton of friends, though it did make me the right kind of friends. So it was fun sitting with my nephew and really becoming friends over 3DS strategy.
Another pretty cool moment I had was with 3 of my nieces. 2 of them had gotten Pokémon and 2DS’s for Christmas and the other got a Kindle fire. The 4 of us sat side by side on the couch after opening presents, and I got to be their guide to the world of Pokémon X and Y (which they already knew WAY more about than I did, since they had played the previous versions). I traded them some of my high level Pokémon, just like Sam and other folks did for me when I first started playing. Let me also say on a side note, that it’s pretty cool to game with 3 brilliant girls, and for it to be totally normal. When I was 6 or 7, it would have been abnormal for all the girls to sit on the couch and play video games together. I like to see that it’s becoming normal, and even expected.
The last bit of substantial gaming I did was pretty nostalgic. I got my mom and friend Cindy to renew their WoW subscriptions, and we rocked out on some Pandas. We each made Horde Pandaran. I am a mage, which is a throwback to my very first character I every started and leveled to max. We played a ton of battle pets. It was nice being able to just hang out, pretending the job market didn’t exist, pretending the flu didn’t exist, pretending my upcoming plane ride didn’t exist, and just fall back into the world of magic, teleportation, and dragons.
The last game I played before writing this blog is a new one called Clash of Clans. My brother started a teacher’s clan on the game, and I’ve been playing like crazy to get high enough to join (NO! I’m not spending money… I just “worked” for those 2 extra builder’s huts!). My mom joined as well, and so now we have a teacher/family group we can use to defeat the world!
I know logically that gaming has many, many benefits, particularly psychologically for me. But it’s also nice when I come home for the holidays and gaming is what makes me social, not antisocial. All the games I played this holiday season were bridges to other people as well as another world. For that I am extremely grateful.
One thought on “Escapism and Holiday Gaming”
While I think that lap co-op is the greatest thing to ever happen to gaming with children, I get the feeling that you may not crave those times in the same way that I do. Such close proximity doesn’t work for everyone and one excited moment can guarantee an elbow to the eye.