Holiday Games Kickoff — What Counts as a Holiday Game?

Halloween's over. The pumpkins are collapsing in the compost bin, the backlog's whispering again, and I swear I can hear Mariah Carey clawing her way out of cryo-sleep. It's early November, which means we're officially entering holiday gaming season. The nights stretch a little longer, the couch gets a little more inviting, and suddenly there's this quiet, collective shift: time to settle in.

But it's got me thinking—what actually counts as a holiday game?

Image originally generated in ChatGPT (DALL·E) and refined in Adobe Firefly using the Gemini 2.5 Flash Image (Nano Banana) model. Final edits by Alex Stahlmann.

When I close my eyes, I'm back in the N64/PS2 era. Those were the days when you could recognize a game by the shape of the box alone. That perfect rectangle under the tree. The weight of it. The glint of plastic when you finally tore through the wrapping paper. We had games growing up, but new ones? Those only came twice a year—Christmas or a birthday. The rest of the time it was Blockbuster rentals and replaying what we had. So when Christmas rolled around, that was when new worlds entered the house.

I still remember unwrapping NBA Showtime: NBA on NBC for N64, that glorious NBA Jam knockoff that has no business as good as it is. Or firing up Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2 and discovering—completely by accident—that it had a secret Christmas arena. Snow falling over the ring. Wreaths on the ropes. I made everyone in the house come look. I didn't even know games could do that. It felt like discovering magic.

Then there was The Sims. Got it for Christmas one year, right when our computer was down with a virus. A virus I may or may not have personally invited while “learning the internet.” We didn't have a fix for weeks. So I just sat on the couch with the manual and the box art, flipping through pages, imagining everything I'd build once the thing finally booted. Looking back, that's when I learned that half of gaming's magic isn't playing—it's anticipating.

These days, my holiday rituals look a little different but they're no less predictable. Every year around Black Friday, NBA 2K drops to 50% off. Every year, I grab the physical copy and tell myself "this is the last one." Every year, I'm lying. It's tradition at this point. I'll snag it, crack a good NA brew, and disappear into the basement for a few hours. It's dumb. It's also perfect.

That's also when I start gravitating toward big, sprawling worlds again—the kind you can really sink into when the weather turns. There's something about roaming through Skyrim or The Witcher while it's freezing outside that just works. Or swinging through snowy Manhattan in Spider-Man: Miles Morales, where it's Christmas in-game and Christmas out the window. I actually lost my save about three-quarters through that one and tried to pick it back up in spring. Couldn't do it. The world had thawed, and so had my motivation. Some games are seasonal whether they're trying to be or not.

Screenshot from Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, courtesy of ScreenRant. All rights reserved by Sony Interactive Entertainment / Insomniac Games.

But here's the thing: holiday games aren't really about snow levels or Christmas events. They're about timing. The break from work. The ritual. The excuse to finally crack open something you've been eyeing since summer. Or the couch chaos of Mario Kart with family, teaching your nephew how items work for the 5th time—then watching him actually start landing wins.

For me, it's also about sharing this stuff. My son's still too young to really grasp what any of this means, but I'm already thinking about what his first Christmas game will be. What rectangle he'll unwrap. Whether he'll flip through a manual the way I did—or if that's just a relic now. (It's definitely a relic.)

So here's what we're doing: over the next few weeks, we're leaning hard into this. Nostalgia deep dives on the games that only mattered in December. The weird traditions we can't shake. The annualized purchases we know are bad ideas but buy anyway. Some of it will be here on the site, some in the pod feed, and if you're in the Discord, you'll get to shape it in real time as we figure out what "holiday game" even means.

Because honestly? I think the answer is different for everyone. And I want to hear yours.

What's the game you only play in winter? The one you got in 2003 that you still think about? The tradition you can't explain to non-gamers? Drop it in the Discord or just let it marinate while we kick this thing off.

Let's have some fun with this.

— Alex