Editor's note: I didn't grow up receiving games every holiday or birthday, though I do remember one year not appreciating a thoughtful gift from my mother because it was the wrong size. Twenty years later, I still have that shirt, and I keep it as a lesson on how to properly acknowledge a gift. Andrew writes about how one gift in particular gave him some much-needed perspective. -Jason

The average Bitmob reader grew up with video games. We got a couple games a year, usually restricted to birthdays and Christmas (or your winter holiday of choice). Since these games were gifts, most of us probably got a game we didn't want and suffered through it.

Video games hold a particularly important place in my history of Christmas mornings. In my family, Christmas was gift time, and we got much more than we did at our birthdays. Perhaps it's part of the Christmas consumer culture, and as my family was one of greater means (my father is a doctor), they had more clout and responded accordingly. My birthday is in May, and without any sort of societal pressure, the gifts were lackluster in comparison to my yuletide haul.

I received most of consoles for Christmas: the Sega Genesis, the Nintendo 64, the PlayStation, the Dreamcast, and the GameCube. Ninety percent of the games my parents bought for me in a given year also came on the holiday. The week between Christmas Day and New Year's Day was usually a gaming marathon in my household. I, of course, spent most of my time in front of TV, and this was the only time of the year that you'd find my sisters and father playing video games.

These days, I still get a video game or two on Christmas from my wife. It's a little bit of a tradition, and rarely do I go the full day without playing some sort of new game. It's a little early to start my daughter on video games (it's her first Christmas), but in time, this will be part of her Christmas as well.

I often become depressed while searching for Christmas gifts for loved ones. Even though no one on my list is a gamer, I still find myself in GameStop or the electronic section of a department store. My nose may as well be pressed up against the antitheft glass case. I chalk it up to nostalgia, a little bit to my prolonged adolescence. Maybe some day I will do the same among all the snowblowers at Sears. You know, when I finally grow up.

While I find this to be good holiday "chicken soup for the soul," I do see parents shopping for their children and overhear their conversations. They fall into two camps, and both kind of depress me.

First is the targeted purchase. You can see them checking their list, scrawled in a preteen hand, a particular game for a particular console. The sales associate usually confirms that indeed the game is for the Xbox (Xbox vs. Xbox 360 is a subtlety not usually known by the parents). Sometimes, the associate will stew in frustration as he can't figure out what Guitar Hero the parents want while the parent is about to have a panic attack.

"I don't know which one, just...Guitar Hero!"

Such gift giving lack mystery, and I feel that something is lost. I never tell people what I would like for Christmas. I regret having done so during my own childhood. The Christmases where I got exactly what I wanted were always a little bit of a letdown. However, the years that I got the console I wanted, but Mom and Dad (I mean Santa) complemented it with games I had not asked for, was a little bit better.

Last year my wife bought me Super Mario Galaxy. It was a game I had played but had traded in, to my regret. The game was a complete surprise, and even though I had played it before, it may have been my favorite video-game gift ever.

The opposite's equally depressing. I've waited in lines with parents buying video games, particularly titles I know their kids didn't ask for. No way in hell would anyone ask for that game. And call me a pessimist, but I've rarely met a child aged 6-16 who won't let their parents know that their gift wasn't up to scratch. And if some kids out there wouldn't, god bless them. Truly.

I remember a Christmas where I didn't get any video games. Instead I got a wonderful Canon 35 mm camera, a fairly expensive affair. It didn't seem so great at the time, though. I hadn't asked for it, nor was I particularly interested in photography. But my parents were, and they thought this was an excellent gift. I had confided my disappointment with my friends as we all met up for our annual Christmas Day cigarettes behind the mall, and within a couple days, they had pitched in and bought me what I really wanted: The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time.

I was superexcited, but eventually, my guilt became suffocating. I had never told my parents that I wasn't interested in the camera, nor did I tell them where the game came from (they couldn't tell one game from the other).

That camera became a symbol of my selfishness and greed. In time, I came to love the camera, and while I still love video games, the camera became much more important to me as the years went by. I still have that camera. The game? Probably sold in a yard sale.

So many video games are out there, and we want them so bad that this makes for all sorts of bad news at Christmas, whether you get exactly what you want or not. Rarely do your wishes and the giftgiver's guesses ever match up for the perfect unwrapping moment.

But I think that's besides the point. The gift is merely a symbol between two people who love each other, and you should appreciate it regardless of what it is. And if it is a video game, be thankful that they at least made the attempt to step into your world, a world they might not even approve of 364 days of the year.

So regardless of what you get from your girlfriends, boyfriends, wives, husbands, parents, or even children, let's heed the advise of Bitmob moderator Toby Davis and let's all "have a great gaming day." And if you get the camera instead of the game, you have the rest of the year to play games.