The Perfect Holiday Gift
Growing up in the late ’70s and early ’80s, “visions of sugarplums” never danced in my head and my dream of the perfect holiday gift never included a Red Ryder BB gun. What I really wanted to find under the tree was the latest video game. The eagerly anticipated holiday wish books sent by Sears and JCPenney offered page after page of electronic games for my friends and me to consider, and the ones we coveted most were the video games for the Atari 2600 and the Mattel Intellivision. We’d gather on the living room floor and carefully examine the pages as we waited patiently—or not so patiently—for our turn to play Space Invaders.
My best friend Brian had an Atari game system and a slew of games to go with it. There were the 
classics, games like Combat and Adventure, but our favorite had to be the copy of the side-scrolling platform game Pitfall! he received for the holidays. If only I had a dollar for every hour we spent swinging from vines, jumping over crocodiles, and exploring the virtual jungle!
A feeling of nostalgia crept in on me when the Atari 2600 was inducted into the museum’s National Toy Hall of Fame in 2007. Check out the Atari 2600 (and the other classic toys) on the National Toy Hall of Fame website and see if the same sensation strikes you.
Unlike the majority of my friends who owned an Atari, I was lucky enough to receive a Mattel Intellivision, the video game system that topped my Christmas list in 1980. And what a system it was…
The graphics and gameplay were so much better than on the Atari—or at least I thought so—and the sports games like Major League Baseball were clearly superior. Some of my favorites were the action/adventure game Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and the strategy game Utopia. Friends in the neighborhood and I spent hours lying on the red shag carpet in my living room slaying dragons and building the perfect pixilated society. 
Video gaming at home and in the arcades was an important part of play during my childhood—not quite as important as playing baseball in my backyard—but certainly a close second. As I grew older, my parents taught me that the holidays were about reflection and giving to others. So now, as a parent, it’s my turn to look for that perfect gift for my children. And it should come as no surprise that a video game tops my daughter’s holiday wish list.
Was there an electronic game that topped your own holiday wish list? We’d love to hear your earliest video game memories—or those of your children and grandchildren. What was your favorite video game system? Which games captured your imagination? I don’t know about you, but around my house I’m guessing that the playlist of seasonal tunes this year might as well include “Joystick to the World” and “Wii Wish You a Merry Christmas.”
My earliest memories of electronic gaming involve the Apple II in my elementary-school classroom in the late 1980s. It was such a treat to slide in the floppy disk and boot up Odell Lake or The Oregon Trail, even if I accidentally flooded the wagon while fording the river.
Oh yeah, the Atari 2600 was always humming.
While we used it to type in endless loops that would flash your name in colors, I remember playing games on the Commodore 64. Anyone remember “Hunt the Wumpus”?
I shouldn’t be amazed, but we found one of those consoles-in-a-joystick that contained about a dozen Intellivision games that my wife remembers playing. At least back then, we couldn’t walk off and misplace the wiimote.
Oh Atari…I miss you. I spent a ton of time working through Q*Bert and Dig Dug.
I think one of the most interesting things is that on of my favorite games growing up was Legend of Zelda and just last night I found myself working through the newest installation of the series…on my Wii.
But, this year, I’m hoping for Rock Band 2 or WiiFit to work off the holiday pounds!
I never had an intellivision or an atari but I played hours of donkey kong on the coleco that i got as a kid. Then i got a nintendo system and played mario and duck hunt til the cart stopped working. Have had pretty much all the game systems since then and have a wii and a play station 3 now. My kids love to play with the wii and have a bunch of wii games on there christmas list for this year. Cool screens on the post esp the one of the civ game that i hadnt seen before.
I had a flashback this Christmas as I tried to quickly set up the new Wii my wife and I bought for our children…clearly remember as I waited for what seemed like forever while my father struggled to hook the Atari up to the bunny ears on the back our our set. My children kept saying “come on Dad, hurry up” and I remember saying the same thing. Once it was finally hooked up they had a blast. We bought the playground game you have running on the Wii in the musuem. Fun to play but not so fun to set up, for me or my father. Cheers