[HN Gopher] Merry Christmas Everyone
___________________________________________________________________
Merry Christmas Everyone
What are some of your favorite memories from Christmas? Share them
here :) - Josh :)
Author : joshagilend
Score : 1438 points
Date : 2024-12-25 03:10 UTC (1 days ago)
| GarnetFloride wrote:
| Merry Christmas One memory was getting a PowerMac G4 which was
| totally cool because it was classified as a munition.
|
| Another was getting thru to mom while I was in Europe and
| watching the phone counter start counting up really fast.
| codevark wrote:
| When I was six my parents got me a 26" Schwinn single-speed bike.
| It was as tall as I was. I rode it until college, doing things
| that were heretofore unknown to science. IT WAS GREAT.
| dc_ist wrote:
| Unwrapping Ocarina of Time. My parents had me convinced it was
| sold out everywhere. That moment is seared into my brain.
| Yhippa wrote:
| Merry Christmas and happy holidays to you too. One of my fondest
| memories was getting a tiny battery-powered train set when I was
| around 6. No idea why I liked it so much. We didn't have many
| toys growing up so you had to enjoy the heck out of the ones you
| did get. I remember when I opened it up the room was dark and we
| sat under the light of our fake Christmas tree with multicolored
| lights.
|
| My kids have too much these days and wonder if they will ever
| experience something like that.
| qntmfred wrote:
| And on earth peace, goodwill toward men
| changexd wrote:
| Merry Christmas homies! We don't really celebrate Christmas in my
| country but I would still like to wish you all a great holiday!
| much love <3
| kyrielei wrote:
| Merry Christmas ^^
| haliax wrote:
| Came home from Christmas Eve shopping/sight seeing in Manhattan
| with my dad and baby sister to find that our mom had gone and
| gotten us a puppy! I'd never had a dog before. It remains one of
| the best and happiest memories of my life :)
| jakebasile wrote:
| What did you name the dog? This never happened to me, but if it
| did I couldn't resist giving it a Christmas themed name.
| haliax wrote:
| Polar Bear! He was a Bichon Poodle mix and his tail hadn't
| grown in yet so he looked exactly like one of the little
| polar bears from the Coca Cola commercials
| mrbluecoat wrote:
| Merry Christmas!
| michaelsshaw wrote:
| God jul, and Merry Christmas to you, personally, my friend!
| tylerflick wrote:
| Merry Christmas!
| jamieplex wrote:
| To you too!
| calrain wrote:
| Back when I was very young, with my family, cousins, all over at
| my grandparents place, having lots of fun.
|
| Here in Australia, Christmas is in our summer, so we used to have
| watermelon seed wars where everyone runs around the house eating
| watermelon as fast as possible to build up a mouthful of seeds to
| use as 'ammo' to machine gun spit at everyone else.
|
| Was hilarious, and a very long time ago...
| lazystar wrote:
| three days before xmas in 2022, my partner of 6 years threatened
| to kill me because i was scared to travel through an ice storm to
| her mom's house. while she was downstairs getting her pocket
| knife, i texted her best friend for help and got her to call her
| and she talked her down. the ice storm prevented any travel for 2
| days; we still made it to her moms for xmas, but i was gone
| mentally for the next year and a half.
|
| broke up with her in may this year; this is my first xmas all
| alone. all my friends and family moved out of state years ago,
| and i spent all my vacation days and sick days studying for a
| coding interview that i had last week for my dream job. i bombed
| it, partly because of anxiety, partly because ive been procedural
| programming for 8 years and suck at OOP principles, and partly
| because the PTSD makes it tough to study/concentrate around xmas.
|
| anyway, im drinking a bottle of mccallan, out here alone with my
| two cats, and its still a better xmas than the last two years.
| apologies for trauma dumping, just tipsy i guess.
|
| oh and i did get the oracle java 8 associate cert last night, so
| i got that going for me, which is nice.
|
| edit:
|
| best xmas memory was playing KOTOR 1 when it came out, while
| eating a big tub of dansk sugar cookies. that dantooine music was
| lovely
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Sorry about the crappy part, and congrats on the good stuff!
|
| If it's any encouragement, I bombed a bunch of interviews
| during my 14 months of unemployment, but in January I'm
| returning to a position I loved.
|
| Just saying that you shouldn't extrapolate too much from even a
| string of such things.
|
| Hope your new year is awesome.
| lazystar wrote:
| thank you, and congrats! best of luck in your new job!
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Thanks!
| jemmyw wrote:
| I don't know if there's a way to ask with sensitivity, but I'm
| very interested to know why you stayed with her for 18 months
| after she threatened to kill you?
|
| Sorry about the job, happens to the best of us. I think when
| it's the dream job you're that much more likely to bomb. I quit
| my dream job because it couldn't pay the bills and joined a
| place I thought I wouldn't last at, now in year 8 it turns out
| it was the dream job.
| lazystar wrote:
| no worries, been asking myself that question too. my best
| guess is that i had disassociated because i couldnt bear the
| cognitive dissonance from accepting the fact that i was in an
| abusive relationship. before that incident, everything in
| that relationship had been going well - but looking back i
| see that i was slowly becoming more and more reliant on her
| for her network of friends and her family, which made
| breaking up a difficult thought to consider. anyway, the
| other thing going on was sleep deprivation from a severely
| deviated septum - i broke up with her in may 2024 after a
| couples counseling session, in which she a) tried to blame me
| for the stabbing incident, and b) admitted to kicking me
| awake every night over the previous 4 years when i snored.
|
| anyway. got surgery to fix that apnea issue in july, and ive
| been getting back to my old self.
|
| edit: the other jarring thing was just how successful i was
| at work. anyone that uses AWS lambda benefited from my
| projects in 2023/2024 - some of that stuff got L10 visibility
| inside AWS. i guess i spent all my mental energy at work,
| even though i was (and still am) fully remote/WFH. anyway it
| was tough to reconcile my failures in my personal life with
| my successes in work life - i was both a failure and a
| success.
| willismichael wrote:
| Godspeed, stranger. Sometimes just taking the first steps
| can be the hardest part of taking care of yourself. Keep it
| up, and best of luck during the new year.
| lizzas wrote:
| Well thank you. My current job is probably only possible
| due to lambda!
| lazystar wrote:
| nice. yw; lots of cool stuff coming in 2025/26. we're re-
| focused on the needs of the customer, rather than
| internal metrics.
| lizzas wrote:
| Yep the isolation lets us run completely untrusted
| workloads. "Us" is not my team, I am adjacent, so I am
| not fully across which buzzwords but it is pretty cool.
| roughly wrote:
| I had a relationship turn that way, too, and had the same
| reaction - it took way too long to recognize what had
| happened and to step back and realize what I had to do. I
| didn't want to admit it was over, I didn't want to admit
| I'd been wrong, and I didn't want to let go of the future
| I'd been imagining. When I got out, I looked back and
| realized I'd basically played the exact script from every
| story you ever hear about that kind of relationship - you
| know, the story where you hear it and say "that was stupid,
| I'd have just...", except it turns out I wouldn't have
| just, because I didn't.
|
| All that's a long way to say I'm sorry for what you went
| through, and if any of what I've said resonates, you're not
| alone and I encourage you to forgive yourself.
|
| Enjoy your Christmas. Being alone ain't the worst thing in
| the world.
| jtxt wrote:
| OP's relationship story sounds so familiar to me.
|
| [Insert TMI story.] Cycle of abuse:
| https://psychcentral.com/health/cycle-of-abuse
|
| Fortunately, it ended ok. I healed for over a year before
| dating again, and dated someone for exactly a year to make
| sure it was good relationship. It still is. :D
| artimaeis wrote:
| Man that Christmas playing KOTOR was phenomenal. First game I
| remember beating and immediately restarting to see the other
| storylines. Christmas cookies for sure enhances the experience.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| I have a similar experience with Mass Effect. Completed the
| trilogy just in time for Christmas. Just getting lost in
| another universe like that is amazing and it's becoming
| increasingly difficult as I get older. Really treasure these
| moments, they remind me of a carefree childhood. Never played
| KOTOR myself but I always read great things about it. Look
| forward to playing it one day.
|
| Merry Christmas.
| burgerzzz wrote:
| Same with 007 on n64
| jamiek88 wrote:
| Was just going to chime in with this. Goldeneye on n64
| Xmas day, selection box and sticky controller. What I
| wouldn't do to feel that innocent safety again.
| edm0nd wrote:
| Cheers homie! I'll go pour myself some Angels Envy and drink
| with ya.
| lazystar wrote:
| cheers!
| whatamidoingyo wrote:
| > i bombed it, partly because of anxiety
|
| I feel this. Can't tell you how many interviews I bombed
| because of anxiety. The worst one I had spent like 3 months
| interviewing with the company, passed all of their tests, etc.
| When it came time to meet the team, I just froze. I answered
| all of their questions correctly, but it was like I wasn't
| myself. I became extremely slow, stammering my words, and just
| blanking out. The CTO couldn't take it anymore and said "just
| stop talking. This isn't going to work". I quickly ended the
| call without saying anything and felt so defeated. What is
| wrong with me.
|
| That was years ago. I'm much better now, mostly because I have
| the confidence in my skills, but it still comes up, especially
| when people are being aggressive during interviews.
|
| Anyway, Merry Christmas. I wish you the best.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| If it was the Seattle ice storm you're talking about, WTF. I
| could barely walk 10 feet out to let my dog out for potty/poop,
| let alone driving a car through that. The entire city shut down
| for the day.
| lazystar wrote:
| yep. she had a dually truck and got home from the barn at
| 5pm; the storm was set to hit at 5:30. she wanted to load up
| the gifts, luggage, cats in the truck, travel 2 hours to a
| ferry down the backroads, and gamble on beating the storm.
| when i said i was scared, she went ballistic. never seen
| anyone get that mad before; being stuck with her in that
| house for 2 days after that was the worst moment of my life
| (as homer simpson would say, worst moment of your life... so
| far!)
| jongjong wrote:
| It's hard to comprehend how much mental trauma someone must
| have gone through to be so unstable and violent.
|
| The range of human experiences is significant. Humans
| communicate using the same languages and same expressions but
| mentally, different people are wired very differently.
|
| Trauma seems to spread like a virus.
| olalonde wrote:
| That's horrible, sorry you had to go through that. I can't even
| imagine the mental toll, Java 8 really?
| lazystar wrote:
| my specialty's always been refactoring legacy codebases; java
| 8 is gonna be the new FORTRAN lol
| drunkonvinyl wrote:
| That resulted in a loud chuckle. My mind was perfectly
| prepared to not expect a punch line, and it smacked me over
| the head. Thanks for the Christmas gift of laughter.
| olalonde wrote:
| Glad I gave you a laugh, Merry Christmas! :)
| mynameyeff wrote:
| If you enjoy high-end scotch, you're a good person in my book.
| jedberg wrote:
| I'm Jewish, so all my Christmas's growing up were kinda the same.
| Sleep in, have brunch, wander over to my neighbor's house around
| noon to see what kind of loot they got and help them play with
| their new toys. Sometimes we'd go out for Chinese food and a
| movie.
|
| But my favorite was Christmas 1999. My girlfriend was out of town
| with her family and there was no reason to go home to mine, so I
| was alone (my roommates were with their families too). I decided
| to go to the movies in Emeryville.
|
| I was going to see Galaxy Quest, Bicentennial Man, and Man on the
| Moon. The timing lined up perfectly to see all three. About 50
| other people were there to do the same thing. When it was time to
| go in for the first movie, a staff member came out and told us
| that it would start about 30 minutes late. This would of course
| cause us to miss all the other movies.
|
| About 30 people stepped forward at the same time and asked to
| speak to the manager. :). We explained to him that it would throw
| our whole schedule off. Since it was Christmas, he was kind
| enough to adjust the schedule so that we could all see all three
| movies.
|
| That was a great day.
| ianwalter wrote:
| Wow what a great set of movies too
| jedberg wrote:
| 1999 is considered by many enthusiasts as a peak movie year.
| It was a great cap to a great year.
|
| https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?title_type=feature&releas.
| ..
| ianwalter wrote:
| I guess I never really thought about it, but yea a lot of
| bangers on that list
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| Oh that explains it, I thought it was just when I came of
| age. I did become suspicious that perhaps it wasn't just a
| personal bias when I noticed the same movies on lists made
| by very different age groups.
| jedberg wrote:
| I graduated in 1995 in LA. Going to the movies was
| something most of us did every weekend. Just show up and
| get a ticket for the next thing you haven't seen yet.
|
| Many consider 1994 the best single year for movies ever.
|
| I got really lucky that that was also my peak movie going
| year.
| alex1138 wrote:
| 1994: Shawshank, Forrest Gump... can't think of others
| right now
| Lio wrote:
| Pulp Fiction and Shallow Grave were two from 1994 that
| spring to mind for me.
| jedberg wrote:
| https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?title_type=feature&rel
| eas...
|
| Pulp Fiction
|
| Lion King
|
| The Mask
|
| Four Weddings and a Funeral
|
| Dumb and Dumber
|
| The Crow
|
| Speed
|
| True Lies
|
| Interview with the Vampire
|
| Natural Born Killers
|
| Ace Ventura
|
| Stargate
|
| Clerks
|
| The list goes on. Lot's of movies that turned out to be
| classics or cult classics, or the start of some great
| careers.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| It was around this time, in a little city of about
| 15,000, in South Australia, when my mum received a gift
| and voucher from Blockbuster for being in the top ten for
| most movie rentals in one year.
|
| This was a time when movies were on VHS tapes, and there
| was a bit before the start of the movie that said
| something like "have you seen every movie ever made?"[1]
|
| And at the time it certainly felt like we had watch
| nearly everything that store and one other had over the
| previous five years.
|
| 1. https://youtu.be/VfuzebAAesk?si=z3-HYkZwJK6mmtWP - I
| think there was at least a couple variations
| j45 wrote:
| That is one pretty unbelievable list.
| vladgur wrote:
| Of course it was peak - the Matrix came out
| globular-toast wrote:
| Nobody even knows about _Dark City_ which came out the
| same year. Because the freaking _Matrix_ came out too.
| That 's just how many good films there were that year. If
| _Dark City_ came out today it would be lauded as most
| original thing in a decade.
| IOT_Apprentice wrote:
| Don't forget about Equlibrium with Christian Bale as a
| Tetragrammaton Cleric. Gunkata.
| ablation wrote:
| It hasn't held up too well objectively, but Equilibrium
| does hold a fond memory for me.
| riezebos wrote:
| Isn't that from 2002?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equilibrium_(film)
| koudelka wrote:
| Don't forget about _The 13th Floor_ , also from 1999.
| vladgur wrote:
| Youre right, Dark City was amazing.
|
| But the elevator lobby shootout from Matrix -- that scene
| ruled my home theater configuration for at least a decade
| OliveMate wrote:
| Worth mentioning Office Space as well for 99. All three
| of those films comprise the _Pre-Millennium paranoid,
| existential, system of control_ trilogy.
| rkachowski wrote:
| iirc scenes from the matrix were actually filmed on some
| of the sets from dark city. The atmosphere and setting
| directly bleeds over.
| AlbertoGP wrote:
| And Dark City was delayed after it was finished, it
| should have come out before The Matrix. I copy here my
| previous HN comment from June 2023:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36415981
|
| ---------------------------------------------------------
| ----------------------------------------
|
| I watched Dark City years after watching The Matrix (on
| opening in the cinema) and I enjoyed it very much, have
| watched it multiple times over the years.
|
| Here is Dark City's director Alex Proyas: "Alex Proyas
| on: The Matrix copying Dark City"
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytxjsetVIRM
|
| And this is a juxtaposition of some scenes with
| background music: "The Matrix vs. Dark City."
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moW17YHl6B8
|
| This is Mr. Hand [Richard O'Brien] talking in "Memories
| of Shell Beach":
|
| > It was a very groovy movie, you see?
|
| > I remember saying to Rufus Sewell [who played the
| protagonist], I said, you know, it actually, truthfully,
| it really doesn't matter, does it, whether it's a box-
| office success because we're going to get paid as actors
| anyway, sorry Alex [Proyas] but this is true, we're gonna
| get paid as actors anyway and isn't it nice to be part of
| something which is groovy?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrK4U6PEu94&t=1029s
| whoisstan wrote:
| I refer to dark city all the time when creating AI
| agents, when Kiefer would inject them with particular
| memories when the city stood still. And Shell Beach pops
| into my mind when I take the train to the former grandios
| Coney Island.
|
| Existenz was another unique underappreciated movie of
| that year and whose theme never got picked by any other
| movie. When Jude Law realizes that the Chinese food he is
| eating can be put together to assemble the gun my mind
| was blown.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| The Matrix, Dark City, The Thirteenth Floor, and
| Existenz.
|
| Saw all of them in 1999 / 2000, my career direction was
| decided in that brief period.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Dark City released in February, 1998. Great movie,
| though.
| sgt wrote:
| Didn't expect Dark City to be mentioned in the Christmas
| thread. Great movie, indeed. Dark, mysterious and thought
| provoking.
| mckirk wrote:
| Fun fact: 1999 was also 'peak public phone booths'. Ever
| since then, they've declined in number and now are almost
| impossible to find. Every year it gets harder to follow
| that damn rabbit...
| lazystar wrote:
| huh, american beauty was 99. i always remember the "plastic
| bag caught in the wind" scene - when i was in middle
| school, years before i saw the movie, i was sitting on the
| sidelines during football practice and saw a plastic bag
| caught in the wind. it was hypnotizing, enrapturing - i
| dont know how long i watched, but that floating bag caught
| against the side of the school building was one of the most
| beautiful things ive ever seen.
| globular-toast wrote:
| It was peak music too. I really don't think things have got
| much better since 1999. If you watch/listen to something
| even from 1997 it seems dated. But 99? Could have been made
| yesterday.
| auselen wrote:
| I wasn't aware of this, was still a teenager at that time.
| May be because of this I was never impressed with later
| years...
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I punched in 1972 and there were some fantastic movies that
| year (The Godfather, Deliverance, Cabaret, Solaris,
| Jeremiah Johnson, Aguirre - the Wrath of God, The Last
| House on the Left, Silent Running, The Heartbreak Kid, Fat
| City, etc.).
|
| Also tried 1973 -- same (The Day of the Jackal, Soylent
| Green, Westworld, The Wicker Man, Papillon, American
| Graffiti, The Sting, Serpico, Mean Streets, High Plains
| Drifter, Don't Look Now, Badlands, The Long Goodbye, Jesus
| Christ Superstar, The Three Musketeers, Fantastic Planet,
| etc.).
|
| I think they simply made better movies decades ago.
| kizer wrote:
| Maybe if they stopped the endless reboots, remakes,
| sequels and derivatives. There's still a good one every
| once in a while. Oh well, I know what movie I'm watching
| today... you'll shoot your eye out, kid!
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Welcome to Hollywood's two decades of superhero
| movies.... I'm sure historians will greedily watch many
| of the classics of this early part of the 21st Century.
|
| It's Christmas, I shouldn't be so negative.
|
| I think I'll indulge in Alastair Sims' version of "A
| Christmas Carol".
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| It's the J.J. Abrams misery box storytelling that ruined
| most TV shows / movies for me. Turning lazy writing from
| a vice into a virtue. Many shows now feel like they're
| actively and intentionally wasting my time, ironically
| curing me of my desire to watch TV/Movies freeing up time
| for better uses.
|
| The other lazy writing is the lack of conflict resolution
| enabling a continuous source of needless conflict, making
| an entire show out of a situation that could have easily
| been resolved if there had been a single 'adult' in the
| room. This has the added problem of normalizing the
| extreme confrontational or evasive communication styles
| as opposed to productive engagements. I guess this is
| what happens when TV raises a generation and then that
| generation goes on to make their own TV shows, each cycle
| worse than the previous. As bad as 'engagement'/'rage
| bait' YouTubers are now I shudder to imagine what the
| next generation would bring.
| smegger001 wrote:
| Hollywood has done reboots/remakes forever how many
| remakes of "a star is born" for example has had three
| remakes (1954, 1976, 2018) since its first version in
| 1937. There is nothing new.
| feznyng wrote:
| You're less likely to remember the not great stuff from
| bygone eras. Not to say there aren't peaks and valleys
| through the years, though.
| tux wrote:
| The Mummy (1999) was the first theater movie for me, it was
| an epic experience!
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Jews have contributed significantly to what is recognizable
| today as Christmas time.
|
| Many catchy classic Christmas songs were written by Jewish
| songwriters.
| madnthrow wrote:
| That's nice!
| petre wrote:
| Bob Dylan has Jewish heritage as well, although I don't
| recall him writing any Christmas songs.
| defrost wrote:
| I don't think he _wrote_ any .. but he did release an
| entire album of classic christmas songs ..
|
| _Christmas in the Heart_ (2009) - 34th Studio album by Bob
| Dylan
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_in_the_Heart
| asveikau wrote:
| Didn't he go through a phase in the 80s in which he was
| super into Christianity?
| petre wrote:
| Yup, he embraced Christianity, that's why I wrote
| "heritage".
| midnightchair wrote:
| Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was written by a great Jewish
| man, how cool is that!
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._May
|
| Rudolph has an odd nose, and he gets chosen to lead all the
| other Reindeer! Kids love this song. You teach it to them
| when they are young and they'll never forget it!
| tux wrote:
| I'm sure this is just a coincidence than but Rudolph sounds
| a like Adolf, or in today's concept Russian Adolf. And word
| red doesn't help, as red was favorite SSSR color. 0_o
| hnuser123456 wrote:
| They're just Germanic names
| ix101 wrote:
| That second sentence was absolutely not what the first
| sentence led me to believe what was coming!
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| Just say the name of the great jazz artist Mel Torme...
|
| "I saw a spiral pad... Forty minutes later that song was
| written. I wrote all the music and some of the lyrics."
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Christmas_Song
| ilbeeper wrote:
| We also contributed the protagonist.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| We all know that the protagonist of Christmas in 2024 are
| Santa Claus and the gifts. It has been massively
| secularized.
| judah wrote:
| Jews wrote all the classic Christmas hits including:
|
| - Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
|
| - Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire
|
| - The New Testament
| Sam6late wrote:
| I'm Muslim, so all my Christmas's school and college days were
| kinda the same, 1980s. I would have a real small tree xmass
| decorated at home and no one would blink about it, then wander
| over to my christian friends' neighborhood around noon to see
| what kind of cherry and wine they were serving. This is that
| neighborhood now
| https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1031546789002116&set=pcb...
| assimpleaspossi wrote:
| A Jewish friend of mine would get a small tree and call it
| his "Moses bush".
| abustamam wrote:
| I'm Muslim too and I always find it interesting to see how
| various non-Christian theists observe Christmas. Obviously we
| don't "celebrate" but I personally don't see anything wrong
| with partaking in the secular parts of Christmas (and let's
| be real, in the west, it's pretty much all secular).
|
| My parents felt otherwise when I was growing up, so my
| siblings and I weren't allowed to do anything Christmas
| related, but now my wife and I would do seasonal things like
| watch a live performance of Nutcracker or Pentatonix or TSO.
| And can't forget about watching the holiday classic movies
| like Elf and Die Hard!
| Aloha wrote:
| I will argue that in the US Christmas is in part a secular
| holiday - given its sorta pagan origins that makes total
| sense to me. It's a solstice feast basically.
| lolinder wrote:
| The pagan origins thing is a myth, btw--all the various
| bits which people point to as evidence still date back to
| a Christian-era Europe and cannot be traced back further.
| Christianity has been around for a very very long time
| and has had a lot of time to evolve its own traditions.
| :)
|
| For example, Christmas trees date back no later than the
| middle ages:
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=m41KXS-LWsY
| sbuk wrote:
| Nonsense. You're conflating tradition (tree in this case)
| with festivals and ancient religious rites. See:
|
| - Yule
|
| - Disablot
|
| - Koliada
|
| - Lohri
|
| - Saturnalia
|
| - Yalda Night
|
| - Nardoqan
| lolinder wrote:
| No, I'm not. All of these are, to the extent we know
| about them at all (which in some cases we don't know
| much), entirely unlike any Christmas traditions we have
| today which are claimed to be pagan in origin.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| How do you know Christmas simply didn't align itself to
| those holidays themselves, because after all, a year end
| winter feast is nothing new in history? Or that the
| traditions we have today may have at once been part of
| such syncreticization but then died out until the modern
| day? In other words we don't necessarily have to see such
| traditions today per se for Christmas to have absorbed
| them over its time.
| lolinder wrote:
| We don't. But we also don't know that they were, and we
| don't have enough quality evidence in favor of that
| hypothesis to justify the confidence with which it is
| asserted.
|
| In the absence of evidence about the timing being
| affected by other festivals and in the presence of much
| evidence that all the actual traditions are far more
| recent than pagan, I don't believe it's fair to claim
| Christmas has pagan origins. The absolute best we can do
| is say that its timing _may_ have been influenced by
| other, pre-Christian celebrations.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| I agree but I also would be interested to see any proof
| for the claims you're talking about with regards to
| Christmas not having any pagan roots, where are you
| finding this information or rather, where can I read
| more?
| lolinder wrote:
| I linked one example--a video on Christmas trees from a
| religious studies scholar. They have similar content on
| the date of Christmas, and there are plenty of sources on
| each other tradition.
|
| Here's another one on Saturnalia from the same scholar:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lsctaPJSvo
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Great, appreciate it. Merry Christmas!
| lolinder wrote:
| Merry Christmas!
| Aloha wrote:
| Merry Christmas indeed!
| mollerhoj wrote:
| In Scandinavia languages, xmas is still called Yule. Not
| sure if having the same name is enough to prove that its
| a continuation?
| afpx wrote:
| Yeah, but you can 100% remove Christian theology and
| still have a fun time.
| Aloha wrote:
| All of the bits that do make up secular christmas, do
| have pagan origins, which is more or less my point.
|
| My general take is that every major religion has some
| sort of solstice related celebration.
| lolinder wrote:
| No, they don't. That's my point--all the bits that make
| up secular Christmas have Christian origins and have
| become secularized over time. For every tradition that is
| commonly cited as having pagan origins, we can trace it
| back until it becomes entirely unrecognizable and it's
| still all Christians all the way down.
|
| As near as I can tell the myth of the pagan origins of
| Christmas has its roots in fundamentalist Christians who
| wanted to abolish things that aren't contained in the
| Bible. "Pagan" made a good rhetorical whip at the time,
| but it's since been taken as a serious approach to
| history by popular culture.
| EchoReflection wrote:
| ChatGPT and Grok say Christmas either _does_ or _might_
| have pagan origins, but not that it definitely _does not
| have_ pagan origins (yes, I know "proving negatives"is
| very difficult+).
|
| ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/share/676c8fd1-b6e0-8005-a86
| f-d43ac17634...
|
| Grok:
| https://x.com/i/grok/share/8fQKIFO1WGl3nDVZ6uFaJmPTW
|
| +Grok on proving negatives:
| https://x.com/i/grok/share/kcHkjqzJ5lx5kMyl4GL0nMuw3
| lolinder wrote:
| LLMs do very poorly at judging the truth of long-term
| myths. When something has been asserted confidently on
| the internet over a long enough period of time it becomes
| baked into the weights, regardless of truth.
|
| I provided a source from a religious studies scholar on
| Christmas trees specifically (one of the most frequently-
| cited "pagan" traditions). If you can point me to
| something with similar provenance I'll read it, but I'm
| not going to waste time on LLM responses.
| singleshot_ wrote:
| Ok, but what about asking someone who knows (anything)?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _pagan origins thing is a myth, btw_
|
| Saturnalia? (I'm watching your video.)
|
| Given how diversely Christmas is celebrated, it seems
| wild to conclude that it hasn't been significantly
| affected by predecessor celebrations.
| lolinder wrote:
| Saturnalia is covered here:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lsctaPJSvo
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| That's the video I began watching.
|
| What is the argument for it not having influenced many
| modern Christmas practices, including but not limited to
| the celebration's timing in the West?
| lolinder wrote:
| The fact that there's almost nothing that overlaps with
| Christmas _besides_ the timing, and that the timing has
| other plausible explanations.
|
| FWIW, I'm very open to the timing having been shifted to
| coincide with other festivals, but that's not what most
| people mean when they say Christmas has pagan _origins_.
| They 're not saying that Christmas isn't actually the day
| Jesus was born (I'm totally on board with that idea),
| they're saying that X, Y, and Z aspects of the Christmas
| celebration were originally pagan and were adapted for
| Christianity. I have seen no compelling evidence in favor
| of that claim about any aspect of Christmas traditions,
| and I've seen plenty against.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _fact that there 's almost nothing that overlaps with
| Christmas besides the timing_
|
| The drunken revelry?
| lolinder wrote:
| Given these two explanations for the drunken revelry,
|
| 1. Christmas has its origins in Saturnalia, but the only
| remaining similarity is the approximate date and the
| drunkenness.
|
| 2. Humans will happily accept any excuse to get drunk
| during the longest nights of the year.
|
| I lean towards option 2 as a much simpler and more likely
| explanation.
| abustamam wrote:
| I think Christmas is whatever one makes of it. Whether or
| not one believes it's a Christian holiday or Pagan
| holiday -- celebrate/observe (or don't) how you like. My
| wife's family is Catholic and they believe it's a sacred
| holiday so they celebrate it religiously. Its origins
| aren't important to that effect. Many religious
| traditions can probably be traced to secular origins.
|
| Personally for me, it's a good excuse to take time off
| work and hang out and feast with people who also have
| time off work. I personally think that (at least in the
| States) it's basically a Commercial Holiday, in that it
| just encourages over-consumption, consumerisation.
| sgt wrote:
| I spoke to a muslim who basically just "gave in" and
| started doing Christmas at home because the kids wanted it.
| With the tree and Xmas presents etc even.
| abustamam wrote:
| Yeah that's probably more common than you might expect.
| My mom is a teacher at an Islamic school and some of her
| 1st graders would often say stuff like "we have a
| Christmas tree at home but my mom told me not to tell
| anyone," which might give you an idea of how Muslims view
| Christmas.
|
| It's not something I personally want to do for my family,
| but I don't think any less of families that do that.
| jedberg wrote:
| My house looks like that photo now too. I love Christmas
| music too.
|
| In fact my friend's house is featured in the top link on HN
| right now. He's helped me with my own show.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42494512
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| I'm largely of the "hell is other people" mindset around
| Christmas, from the overtly fascist elderly relatives to the
| incomprehensible demands of immediate family. I would love just
| one Christmas like that!
| andrepd wrote:
| Indeed. If you have a nice family to be around at Christmas
| cherish it, it's not so common as it seems!
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| I think people tend to fascism as they age, the more they've
| done and seen and accumulated, the more conservative they get
| and the more their personal experience of the world must be
| maintained, protected.
|
| Talk to them about their youth, when they were wild and
| rebellious. Find out what trouble they caused. Remind them,
| and it just might crack the encrusted exterior a little bit.
| wholinator2 wrote:
| See, i believe this is generally trueish for the current
| moment, has it always been true though? For example, I've
| already passed the time in which my father _insisted_ I
| would become conservative and have very much not developed
| anything like the conservative values of modern America.
| Though, maybe it's just that conservatism has drastically
| changed since the 70s. For instance, i certainly have
| become less insistent on things like UBI and more realistic
| about single payer Healthcare, but i have not developed
| disdain for illegal immigrants, the desire to force birth,
| anti-gay marriage, anti-trans, etc. Were these perquisites
| to be conservative in the 70s? I'd say im fiscally slightly
| left, but socially i simply cannot understand the rights
| positions, it just sounds like hater shit to me
| vixen99 wrote:
| Are you conflating fascism with conservatism? Stalin was a
| socialist, a fascist and a conservative in the sense in
| which the 'c' word indicates 'maintenance of the status
| quo'. Certainly conservatives like to conserve & we hope
| that means saving that which is generally considered worth
| conserving though opinions differ when it comes to the
| details. Hitler was a national socialist and most
| definitely a fascist. Unregulated powerful elements in any
| society will always tend towards a degree of compulsion to
| maintain their status and we're not short of examples in
| the West. 'and the more their personal experience of the
| world must be maintained, protected.' is merely an
| assertion which you choose to believe. I'm sure examples
| can be found but also plenty of counter examples. You can't
| generalize.
| kleiba wrote:
| _> But my favorite was Christmas 1999. My girlfriend was out of
| town_
|
| Classic.
| jedberg wrote:
| FWIW I ended up marrying her. Now we go out of town together.
| :)
| kleiba wrote:
| ddi..)
| i_am_a_peasant wrote:
| I'm Jewish too. But I've always been around people who
| celebrate Christmas. I don't bother lighting the Menorah for
| Hanukkah this year since I live alone. I got half a mind to go
| to the local temple and sit with strangers there but I don't
| really feel like it. Treating myself to some McDonalds a la
| uber eats today. I never eat the stuff.
| bowmessage wrote:
| Please don't poison yourself with that chemical food!
| mathgeek wrote:
| I hope that Christmas finds you in a wealth of joy and
| whatever you're looking for that causes such comments. We
| are all fighting our own battles and this is my sincere
| hope that you win yours!
| stormfather wrote:
| Sorry, what? Not wanting someone to poison themselves is
| an expression of love
| asveikau wrote:
| One meal won't kill them.
| throwawayq3423 wrote:
| > The dose makes the poison
| i_am_a_peasant wrote:
| if it makes it any better I had a plant burger xD, i find
| it hilarious how everyone fixated on the mcdonalds part
| of the comment
| asveikau wrote:
| I mean I share the sentiment against low quality food and
| its effect on health, as probably everybody who eats
| there is also probably aware of too, but again, this is
| not the time or the place...
| samatman wrote:
| All food is chemical food. That's why we eat it, for the
| chemical energy.
| BrandoElFollito wrote:
| I am sure that nutrition was the key part of his message.
| Well spotted!
| romanobro56 wrote:
| If you started 30 minutes late you wouldn't miss all the other
| movies just the middle one
| AznHisoka wrote:
| OK, i am ignorant, but why do most Jewish people eat Chinese
| food on Christmas? Is there something I am missing?
| fumplethumb wrote:
| Most other places are closed. Chinese restaurants are
| typically open on Christmas!
| chuckwnelson wrote:
| My understanding is it's the only other places that are open
| on Christmas.
| pitaj wrote:
| I believe it's because Chinese restaurants historically are
| the only ones open since they don't celebrate Christmas.
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| Chinese restaurants are often owned by first or second
| generation Chinese immigrants who (1) aren't Christian and
| (2) haven't been in the US long enough to adopt local
| customs. Since restaurants often are marginally profitable,
| they tend to stay open on Christmas because there is profit
| to be made, especially since most of the competition is
| closed that day.
|
| If you are Jewish, Christmas obviously isn't nearly as
| important to your (often nominally) Christian neighbors and
| there isn't much to do on Christmas day. If you decide you
| don't want to cook, Chinese restaurants are way over-
| represented in the choice of open restaurants. Once you do
| that for a couple years it becomes its own tradition.
|
| I grew up in a Catholic household but my family, after years
| of making Turkey and spending hours cooking, for the past few
| years has switched to Chinese food on Christmas. I don't miss
| the turkey and gravy.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Chinese restaurants will also often have whole roast duck
| which is an easy way to get the dinner centerpiece if
| you're cooking the rest. My family doesn't eat out but we
| always get a whole duck on Christmas and Thanksgiving (it's
| a 20 year old tradition at this point).
| woodruffw wrote:
| Others have mentioned that it's because Chinese places are
| open, but another reason is that Chinese food is (or was) not
| _obviously_ treif, meaning that there is (or was) a degree of
| plausible deniability around eating it.
|
| Source: family apocrypha.
| emchammer wrote:
| I was not aware that the error bars between kashrut and
| marit ayin are that wide. I figured that it was because of
| the intersection of Jewish middle class culture and Chinese
| culture starting in the 1930s, and because Chinese
| restaurants generally do not serve dairy products.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I think those are factors as well!
|
| This is all apocrypha, so take it with a grain of salt.
| But my understanding is that this would be a case where
| marit ayin would not be a significant concern, since the
| Chinese dishes in question were not visually identifiable
| as e.g. pork.
|
| Or another framing: if you were a semi-secular family
| (like mine) that tried to keep a semi-kosher home, it
| would be easier to eat a dish that contained finely
| minced pork or shellfish or similar. American Chinese
| food fits those parameters while also being available on
| Christmas, etc.
| ilbeeper wrote:
| I was under the impression that Chinese food is all about
| pork. Something like that Modi's rant:
| https://m.facebook.com/reel/1021462526286349
| woodruffw wrote:
| There's also a lot of vegetarian/non-pork-but-fleishig
| Chinese food. But the point was more that Chinese food
| that _isn 't_ kosher isn't obviously so, especially 60-70
| years ago when it was less commonplace.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| My Christmas Eve tradition with my wife for the last 14 years
| has been to eat as much Chinese food as we possibly can at
| our favorite Chinese place. Then we drive around town looking
| at Christmas lights while listening to classic Christmas
| music. Neither of us are religious, but we were both raised
| Christian.
|
| I came into this thread thinking that I don't really have any
| great Christmas memories. My family was poor growing up, my
| parents shouldn't have been together for as long as they
| tried to make it work, and my father had a lot of issues with
| drugs and alcohol. But now that I think about it, these
| Christmas Eve memories with my wife are my favorite.
| james_marks wrote:
| It's not just Jewish people; it's anyone who doesn't want to
| cook, and Chinese restaurants are historically the only thing
| open.
| memhole wrote:
| This is the top comment I hope for on every Christmas. Some of
| us draw snowmen instead of Santas. We all get a day to enjoy in
| our own way though. Sounds like a great time.
| duckmysick wrote:
| My upbringing was pretty secular but we still did plenty of
| snow angels.
| htk wrote:
| Merry Christmas, hackers!
| benreesman wrote:
| Merry Christmas HN!
|
| I've spent a lot of holidays alone over the last few years, and
| the HN community was a joy and a comfort every time.
|
| I have the pleasure of spending holidays with family this year,
| and I'm trying to answer everyone's questions about computer
| stuff, I invariably wind up referring to the great comments on HN
| as the best resource around.
|
| I look forward to spending another year with all of you, and hope
| you all have a wonderful holiday.
| ashton314 wrote:
| I've always loved Christmas--I'm blessed that it's all good
| memories. But having a little kid the past few years is a whole
| new level of magic.
|
| Merry Christmas everyone. :)
| unboxedvariable wrote:
| Merry Christmas HN!
|
| Hope everyone was able to slow down the pace a little, connect a
| little more with people we may have not caught up with recently
| and send/receive positive vibes. And happy new year.
| mukti wrote:
| Some of my favorite memories are the times I got video game
| systems. Most notibly the Sega Genesis and z scale trains I got
| in '94/'95/'96 (not sure the exact year, I was very young) and
| GameBoy Color in '99. I got a Xbox in '01, Xbox 360 in '05; but
| they didn't quite have the same "magic" that they had when I was
| young. Also as a young kid, watching the Rankin Bass stop motion
| movies on the days leading up to Christmas. Then talking with my
| brother and sister while we tried (failed) to sleep on Christmas
| Eve, watching more and more obscure Christmas cartoons and
| whatever else would come on TV late on Christmas Eve
| night/Christmas morning.
|
| The best non-Christmas morning memories were just random times I
| was at family Christmas parties or gatherings. Seeing aunts,
| uncles, and cousins dancing talking having fun. As a kid, we used
| to have the parties at family homes, which was always fun and
| super memorable. Later we moved to a hall as the family got
| bigger and cousins started to bring their children, in laws, and
| friends. I can't really point out any particular memory as good;
| just all the time spent with family, not necessarily caring about
| what else was going on in the world at the time.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| > watching more and more obscure Christmas cartoons and
| whatever else would come on TV late on Christmas Eve
| night/Christmas morning.
|
| Which ones if you're able to recall?
| mukti wrote:
| There were quite a few I'll never remember the name of, but
| there were a lot of different renditions of A Christmas Carol
| with unknown characters on Cartoon Network or some other kids
| channel. I definitely remember Christmas Comes to Pac-
| Land[1], 'Twas the Night Before Christmas[2], A Jetson
| Christmas Carol[3], and one of the Flitstone Christmas
| episodes where they were acting in a play.
|
| [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499003/ [2]
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0208654/ [3]
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290683/
| MarkMarine wrote:
| My grandmother broke the Christmas gift rules with my parents
| and got my brother and I a NES, Tetris, duck hunt with the gun,
| and I believe the Olympics with the power mat. Christmas
| windfall I'll never forget, seeing my parents faces drop as we
| opened all those games and just ignored every other present.
| Grandma had a nack for tweaking my mom any way she could, one
| of the meanest people I've ever met in my life but this year
| our interests aligned.
|
| My mom was enthralled by Tetris, better at the game than anyone
| in the house by a good 10 levels, and basically impossible to
| depose from the controller. I think it softened the blow with
| Grandma.
| a_t48 wrote:
| Gameboy Color in 99, too. Pokemon Gold all the way through the
| Y2K New Years was nice.
| laurieg wrote:
| I remember being given a large K'nex construction set as a toy at
| Christmas. I can still feel the visceral excitement of opening it
| up and looking at all the pieces, imagine what kind of things I'd
| build. I think the ferris wheel was my favorite.
|
| A few years ago I was a bit down abd feeling like I'd never
| experience that kind of excitement and joy again. I've come to
| realize that now I'm older it's my job to create that same joy in
| others.
|
| I hope everyone is having a wonderful day and can find a way to
| create just a little moment of joy for someone else. Merry
| Christmas!
| brian-armstrong wrote:
| K'nex! They exist! I had forgotten all about them. I also (now)
| fondly remember the K'nex Christmas.
| cperciva wrote:
| When I was in Oxford, almost all the students went home for
| Christmas -- for the domestic students it was easy to travel, and
| most of the international students were wealthy enough that the
| cost didn't matter to them. I came from a middle class background
| and flying back to Canada would have been a significant cost
| (especially since my scholarship came with a living allowance
| which was only paid while I was in the UK) so I stayed in Oxford.
|
| My third year in college, we had a new Warden (head of college)
| and while he, like all the other academic staff, generally
| vacated the college over Christmas, he felt obliged to offer
| Christmas hospitality.
|
| So he sent out an email to the entire student population: "Any
| students in college over Christmas are welcome to come to the
| Warden's Lodge for afternoon tea at 3pm on Christmas Day." -- and
| as I was the only student in college over the vacation, I had a
| lovely afternoon talking to the Warden and his wife.
|
| Graduate students generally don't have much interaction with
| college academic life -- undergrads usually meet with the Warden
| every term, but grad students are left to the academic
| departments to supervise -- so it was a rare and precious
| opportunity.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Sounds like a very Harry at Hogwarts kind of Christmas!
| consf wrote:
| Afternoon tea on Christmas Day in Oxford with thoughtful
| conversation sounds like something out of a novel
| cperciva wrote:
| It does, doesn't it? This might say something about English
| authors -- a lot of them went to Oxford or other places
| heavily inspired by Oxford.
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Seems like that commenter's comments are all AI, albeit
| with an atypical prompt.
| cperciva wrote:
| Huh, I wondered why it was flagged. Seems like a sensible
| comment regardless of the author, though.
| delibaltas wrote:
| I have seen movies starting like this.
| pid-1 wrote:
| Interesting, I had a similar experience as an exchange student
| in Britain.
| radar1310 wrote:
| Merry Christmas to all and to all a nice tech gift.
| brokencipher wrote:
| Merry Christmas
| onecommentman wrote:
| I'll skip the well-meaning attempt at personal engagement (too
| old and cranky for that) and just wish everyone Merry Christmas
| (or whatever religious/winter solstice variants span your
| spiritual function space at this time of year) and the happiest
| of New Years.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| Happy Solstice! It's all about the axial tilt of this pale blue
| dot where we all need more peace, kindness, and compassion.
| illwrks wrote:
| Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it, if you're playing
| Santa for little ones I hope it was a success ;)
|
| To everyone else, I hope you have a nice festive break!
|
| One of my fondest Christmas memories was when my brother and I
| got a PlayStation 1 for Christmas, the excitement and
| entertainment was amazing, we had graduated from Gameboys to 3D
| graphics. My brother is very competitive so it was the best to
| win against him in the car racing game (Tommi Makinen Rally). I
| can't remember what other game we got but I do remember he and I
| playing Command on Conquer years later and that background music
| is burned into my mind :D
|
| Years later with my own kid I have a greater appreciation for the
| expense and planning our parents went through to find one for us.
| glitchc wrote:
| We get together as a family and make a lasagna. And before you
| ask, we're not Italian. It's just a fun tradition, and leads to
| some amazing memories.
| ricardo81 wrote:
| Feeding an unsuspecting and perhaps inebriated auntie dog
| biscuits that to be fair, looked like regular chocolate buttons.
| mikewarot wrote:
| I always enjoyed the family get togethers over at my Father in
| law's house. There was always a festive spirit and _plenty_ of
| really tasty food.
| sowbug wrote:
| I didn't like my stepfather, but his family did Christmas
| right. We'd all go to his parents' house, and it seemed like
| there were a hundred family members there. Incredible food,
| tamales, a big pot of beans and fresh corn tortillas, carnitas.
| The grandfather did the Santa Claus tradition, handing out the
| presents in full costume and character, after which my 50 step-
| cousins and I would absolutely destroy whatever toys we had
| just received.
|
| When bedtime arrived, of course there weren't enough beds for
| everyone, so each of us kids would grab couch cushions, find a
| nook somewhere between two pieces of furniture, and sleep like
| the dead on the 1970s plush carpet.
|
| My mom wised up a few years later and divorced him, instantly
| improving the other 364 days of the year. But I missed those
| crazy Christmases.
| vallard wrote:
| I was a missionary in Montevideo Uruguay never having been away
| from home for Christmas. There were fireworks all night long and
| we were just outside with all the kids going to different peoples
| houses and just having a blast. Was one night I felt like
| everyone was nice to us and just accepted us.
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| My first Christmas vigil mass.
|
| Merry Christmas everyone.
| ChumpGPT wrote:
| I had an awesome uncle when we were kids (70's). He was a mover
| and shaker, a real-life hustler, the kind of guy who carried
| around a stack of 100s with a rubber band around them. He wore a
| long fur coat with a black hat. He looked like Cramer in the
| episode of Seinfeld where he had the Amazing Technicolor
| Dreamcoat. Every Christmas Eve after dinner he would take me and
| my brother out to the movies. Good Times....Good Times....
| hooverd wrote:
| Listening to David Sedaris' Six to Eight Black Men. It's an
| amazing bit.
| block_dagger wrote:
| One of his best.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Merry Christmas HN!
| tmsh wrote:
| * approx age 6-7: unwrapping a Nintendo entertainment system
| (part-time English teacher single-parent mom but investment
| banker uncle)
|
| * a few years later: same thing with SNES
|
| * middle school: coming back from a small ski trip and starting
| to read John Grisham novels.
|
| * college: staying over one break in western mass. Biking to
| Hadley mall where they had an Amy's cheese pizza and bringing it
| back to the German house that had an oven.
|
| * mid 20s: watching whatever odd PBS documentary while hanging
| out with my mom.
|
| * early 30s: my aunt's lasagna and extended family meals we took
| for granted at the time.
|
| * late 30s: good news after a fertility journey.
|
| * early 40s (today): my wife and I using our decade of experience
| navigating edge cases when filling prescriptions to help my MIL
| fill an important heart medication so she didn't have to go to
| the ER for Christmas.
| neofrommatrix wrote:
| Indian (Hindu) here who went to a Catholic convent back home. My
| favorite memory is of a reenactment of Jesus' birth on stage by a
| bunch of 10th graders (my class) and instantly falling for the
| girl that played Mary. I'm now married to her and we have a
| toddler. Merry Christmas!
| SwiftyBug wrote:
| Ok, you gotta tell us that you named your baby Jesus, please.
| neofrommatrix wrote:
| Would have been a Hindu Jesus, if we had named him that.
| Missed that chance!
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| or in your case, Mary Christmas.
| 99catmaster wrote:
| Lmao
| gweinberg wrote:
| Merry marry Mary Christmas!
| jll29 wrote:
| How romantic! Merry Christmas indeed.
| blindriver wrote:
| If you are visiting SF, Christmas is the very best time to
| sightsee, especially in the morning. Every major location has
| plenty of free parking and no one is there. I have lived here for
| decades but Christmas is my favorite time to bring visitors
| because they can see everything that is normally hard to see
| because of parking, too many tourists etc.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| The worst time to visit is when Karl shows up, the bridges are
| not visible and the cold is uncomfortable.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_fog
| jakebasile wrote:
| Merry Christmas!
|
| I had rented Final Fantasy 7 from Blockbuster so many times that
| my brother decided to get it for me for Christmas. Even though I
| never really snooped for presents he decided to mess with my head
| and wrapped it in two large bath towels and put it in an even
| larger box. This giant package below the tree for me, and it
| sounded like cloth - I figured it must've been a jacket or
| something until I opened it.
|
| Another time I was looking for something (not presents) in my
| parent's room, and happened to find a very poorly hidden
| Playstation 2 from my father. The waiting until Christmas part
| was fitting punishment for accidental snooping.
|
| Some of the finest memories are just a jumble of similar
| situations though. Christmas Eve was the night my entire local
| family would gather at my maternal grandmother's house, and we'd
| all have a big meal and sit around chatting afterwards.
|
| Then there's that one Christmas Eve when I asked my now-wife to
| marry me. I knew she'd say yes but there's always that little bit
| of fear about it. I wanted to ask when everyone I loved would be
| around.
|
| Time sure flies. Both my father and my maternal grandmother have
| passed since the last time we all celebrated Christmas together.
| brian-armstrong wrote:
| The accidental gift finding is so funny. My dad got me a bike
| for Christmas one year. Of course it's really hard to hide a
| bicycle, and he put it alongside the side of our house in a
| part of the yard nobody ever went in. For whatever reason, I
| happened to be playing in that part of the yard and found it. I
| asked him why there was a bike stored out in our yard because I
| was not a very clever kid. In hindsight it's very funny to
| imagine his perspective on it.
| jakebasile wrote:
| I ended up telling him later in life and he just started
| laughing. He had no idea I'd found it!
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Spending Christmas Eve with family is the best. Really cherish
| those moments. The pace of everyday life is so fast, it's easy
| to forget what's really important.
|
| Merry Christmas.
| jakebasile wrote:
| Yes, they're the feeling of Christmas I remember most fondly.
| throw-qqqqq wrote:
| Truer words were never spoken!
|
| I see my family too rarely because of the everyday hustle. I
| love the holidays for the slow pace, the long lunches and
| dinners. Talking about nothing and everything.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| > Some of the finest memories are just a jumble of similar
| situations though.
|
| This is how I feel about Xmas, thanks for putting it in words.
| joemazerino wrote:
| 2001 was definitely the FF7 year. Played all 3 discs during the
| winter break.
| deanmoriarty wrote:
| The year I got the original Gameboy, came with Tetris and
| Gargoyle's Quest. Must have been 1991 or so, was probably the
| happiest Christmas of my life. Incredible how I still vividly
| remember that morning, more than 30 years later. I opened the
| gifts and then we spent the day at my cousins' eating and
| playing, I was the youngest among my cousins and it was so cool
| hanging out with them, slightly older kids, we stayed there from
| morning til midnight. What I wouldn't do to live that day again,
| perhaps paying more attention to the adult conversations
| happening at the dinner table which I completely ignored as a
| young kid back then.
|
| My parents have been so good and kind to me, we were never poor
| but money was always tight with my dad being a small business
| owner with some ups and many downs, and yet they never failed to
| provide memorable gifts when I was a kid. I was very happy back
| then, but just as an adult I came to appreciate the sacrifices
| they must have made for me.
| delibaltas wrote:
| Christmas of 1981 in Athens, Greece. I was 15. Father had died 3
| years ago from heart attack at 42. His last words to my mother:
| "Educate the kids".
|
| She did her best, given that my grandfather was old fashioned and
| had stopped her from going to school after she became twelve,
| although she was among the smartest in her class.
|
| That Christmas she had bought me the brand new then Sinclair ZX81
| personal computer. We were visiting the grandparents in a small
| village near Athens.
|
| I spend the night by the fireplace with a small portable TV and
| the machine, typing in games published in the UK PC magazines of
| that time and occasionally watching the Chrstmas shows. Debugging
| my typos was the way I learned how programming works.
|
| Nothing really interesting here, but I am remembering that night
| again and again so when I saw the prompt I felt I should share.
| Merry Christmas everyone.
| kaonwarb wrote:
| A beautiful memory. I felt like I was sitting next to you,
| watching over your shoulder. Thank you for sharing.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| 1998 - my father had abandoned the family - I received a TI83
| and the instruction manual. Spent literally a full week
| teaching myself TI83 Basic from that manual. It had everything
| necessary - variables, loops, functions. And I did it all hand-
| typing it in on the calculator keyboard!
| throwaway2037 wrote:
| What a great story, the perfect kind of HN post. Did Sinclair
| advertise in Greek... Or did your Grandma speak enough English
| to figure out what to buy?
| delibaltas wrote:
| I had seen advertisments in greek from the Greek importers of
| the brand. I had asked my mother for it and she delivered.
|
| Since you asked for the greek market I can share one more
| memory. About a year later, 1982, I wanted to upgrade to
| Texas Instruments TI-99/4A so I tried to see a machine up
| close going to the local representative. I ended up at the
| "company's HQ" which was a small residence appartment in the
| fifth floor of a building.
|
| I found the door open so I entered a room full with boxes
| thrown around randomely. After waiting alone for an awkward
| period of 5-10 minutes, the owner of the company himself
| emerges from the bathroom with a wet face and kind of
| surprised to see me. He listened to what I wanted. "It's
| somewhere there, go and have a look" it's all what he said.
| He couldn't care less.
|
| 13 years later I had my own small company and reselling PC
| and equimpent was part of the job. The man with the wet face
| was one of the biggest suppliers in Greece, since besides
| Texas Instruments he moved on to be the representative of
| Intel and Microsoft and reseller of many others and the
| company became on of the biggest in Greece.
|
| Maybe his mentality ("there it is, go and have a look") never
| changed much though, because a couple decades later the
| company went bankrupt.
| utopcell wrote:
| There definitely were ads for spectrums in Greece back then
| [1] but if I were to guess they were coming from local
| distributors rather than Sinclair.
|
| [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/greece/s/N8djTsI1wC
| nopakos wrote:
| Heartwarming story! Fellow Greek here. Also made my family take
| the Amstrad CPC and monitor to an 8 hours trip to the village.
| ddgflorida wrote:
| I can identify with having a GREAT Christmas associated with a
| new computer. In my case, the same year, 1981, and a Radio
| Shack Color Computer, 16K Ram.
| kapitar wrote:
| My dad got us an Atari 130 XE for Christmas back in the 80s.
|
| On Christmas day, it ran a program which asked for our names
| (my sister or I) and then printed out a personalised message
| and small game.
|
| Only years later did I really think about him setting up this
| program days or weeks before hand, learning to code it all in
| Atari Basic, for that big reveal on the day.
|
| He always had menial blue collar jobs because of his working
| class Irish Catholic background, and he died before I really
| got into computers/dev later on in life, so I never really got
| to ask him about it.
|
| Enjoy the day everyone and hopefully build up some nice family
| memories!
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| I remember my whole family playing golf on Atari 65XE -
| everyone: me, brother, dad and mom.
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| Game's name was Leader Board Tournament
| duckmysick wrote:
| That is such an awesome story! Immediate favorite for me. Can
| relate to typing in the code published in the gaming magazines.
| Mine was with memory-editing the game values, albeit not on
| Christmas.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| May you all find Peace and comfort this Christmas. I had a
| somewhat traumatic childhood but Christmas Eve was the one day I
| could count on to find solace. Despite the dysfunction of family,
| attending Christmas Mass and in later years watching the
| televised Christmas Eve mass from the Vatican was always a
| calming experience. God is love. We are his children, brothers
| and sisters. We may not understand the mystery of life. But we
| have faith in God whose mercy endures forever.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| Peace and comfort to you as well!
| uncomplexity_ wrote:
| lots of alcohol, cigarettes, and karaoke's
|
| time is fleeting gents
| RobRivera wrote:
| Ho ho ho Its christmas time (5 tabs open)
| ethagnawl wrote:
| Merry Christmas and happy holidays to all.
|
| I haven't used Ruby in about five years but I'm still looking
| forward to reading the release notes for 3.4(?) over coffee in
| the morning, as I've done every Christmas for about 15 years.
| kurisufag wrote:
| just listening to the radio.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| When my son was three, we setup a particularly beautiful tree and
| our first big light display on our front porch (the tree was just
| inside the big bay window)
|
| My wife and I were dead tired, and my son woke us up in a state
| of complete excitement. She headed downstairs to "check for
| elves" and prepare a few things, with me and kiddo at the top of
| the stairs.
|
| When the elves were confirmed to have vacated, I went down,
| followed by my son. We somehow got him to wait for me to sit on
| the couch and then... he rounded the corner. My son started
| singing "deck the halls" The look of pure joy and innocence and
| excitement is a memory I will treasure forever.
|
| We've since tragically lost my wife to cancer, and although he's
| much older now, we maintain most of the little traditions and
| either still believe or pretend to each other to believe a few
| special aspects of our celebration. Christmas was my wife's joy
| and we revere it in a unique way.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| That was beautiful, thank you.
| tsumnia wrote:
| The year of the leopard print futon.
|
| I thought I was the coolest kid in the world because my bed could
| fold up into a couch. Funny enough, I still sleep great on
| futons. These days if I lie down on a futon, go ahead and assume
| I'm about to take an hour long nap.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| Christmas is also my birthday. On my 30th birthday I ignored all
| of my friends and family and played Crash Bandicoot on PS4 all
| day. It was great.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| Merry Christmas and happy birthday!
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| Thank you! :) Merry Christmas
| samatman wrote:
| I have a cousin who shares your birthday. Her name is Merry
| Noel.
|
| Hope you're having a merry Noel as well. ^_^
| LorenDB wrote:
| Sounds like a tragedeigh.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/tragedeigh/
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| Thank you and merry Christmas!
|
| That's a great name. Do you know if Christmas was her mom's
| expected due date? Kind of wondering if they had the name
| planned before she was born or if they came up with it
| because she happened to come on xmas
| codebaobab wrote:
| Merry Christmas, HN!
| katamari-damacy wrote:
| Merry Xmas!
|
| I have to ask though, given America is a multicultural country:
| how come we don't see celebrations on HN of the other two
| Abrahamic religions? I mean they have their own religious
| holidays and celebrations, and one actually coincides with Xmas
| this year.
|
| Why the waspy vibe on HN?
| jondwillis wrote:
| There's still a lot more Christian than Muslim or Jewish people
| in the USA/YC-prone countries, as well as people that celebrate
| it in some way for cultural reasons. So, demographics and it
| isn't actually about religion at all for a lot of people.
| tempestn wrote:
| Yep, exactly. Very few of my friends are religious at all,
| but we all celebrate Christmas. Not as a religious holiday,
| but as a time that by tradition we spend time and share gifts
| and love with friends and family.
| vlunkr wrote:
| This is the beautiful thing about Christmas. It's a buildup
| of hundreds of years of traditions if you trace it back to
| Saturnalia. It's a mix of ancient and modern customs,
| folklore from many cultures, and infinite family or
| personal traditions. The Christian angle is certainly
| there, but you can leave it out entirely and still have a
| full experience.
| olalonde wrote:
| Christmas is much more widely celebrated. Pretty much everyone
| in my family is atheist and we've always celebrated it. I'm in
| China right now and many of my Chinese friends are doing
| something for Christmas and wishing me "Merry Christmas",
| despite none of them being Christian. There are Christmas trees
| and decorations everywhere. It has become more of a cultural
| celebration than a religious one for many people around the
| world.
| disambiguation wrote:
| Anyone can make a thread, maybe ask them why they choose not
| to?
| michaelsshaw wrote:
| Christmas is not about Jesus at all, it's the American red-and-
| green snowy holiday with family, Santa, gifts and drinking.
| It's not perceived as a religious holiday by most of us. If you
| want those other threads, then perhaps you should personally
| create them. I'm sure nobody here will be upset with that.
|
| As an aside, the letter X a literal form of Jesus's name.
| tyrd12io wrote:
| It's not perceived as a religious holiday by most of us - of
| course not when majority of them are christians. For rest of
| us its a religious holiday. by not acknowledging it as
| religious event, you are just ignoring people of other
| faiths.
| burgerzzz wrote:
| Do you post similar comments on other religious holidays?
| let_me_post_0 wrote:
| Christianity is uniquely welcoming in a way that neither Islam
| nor Judaism are. Judaism is exclusive and you're not invited.
| Islam is more similiar to Christianity but in many ways
| mutually exclusive with it, so again not really inviting for us
| in the western hemisphere with a Christian background.
|
| In any case it is not up to people with a Christian background
| to decide to get their noses in the traditions of other
| cultures. That would be culturally insensitive. You should have
| posed this question to the Muslims and the Jews of America.
| nraf wrote:
| Following your logic, Christianity would be not be inviting
| to those in Muslim-majority countries.
| dcuthbertson wrote:
| > Judaism is exclusive and you're not invited.
|
| That's not strictly true. I suspect those that follow
| Orthodox and Ultra Orthodox Judaism are exclusive. However,
| those that follow Reform Judaism and the Conservative
| Movement support conversion to Judaism, so you are invited.
| jyounker wrote:
| > Christianity is uniquely welcoming in a way that neither
| Islam nor Judaism are.
|
| That's not been my experience at all.
| drmpeg wrote:
| For me, it was Christmas Eve 1968 and the reading of Genesis from
| Apollo 8. My parents had just bought their first color TV.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| My favorite memories are from family gatherings. Christmas is a
| magical time that can really bring the family together. We used
| to have them a lot when I was a kid but they just kind of stopped
| as I got older. As though the magic was gone.
|
| This year I got to experience this again and it made me so happy.
| Seeing my family together and happy, conflicts and troubles
| forgotten. It was a joy I hadn't felt in such a long time, I
| didn't know it was still possible.
|
| Merry Christmas, everyone.
| niag wrote:
| Merry Christmas!
|
| This year, I'm flying solo. My wife and daughter are visiting
| family in India, and my mum's spending the holidays with my
| younger brother and his family. With the house unusually quiet,
| I've decided to knock the rust off my frontend skills and catch
| up with all the new tooling.
|
| Not a bad way to spend a quiet Christmas, really. Hope everyone's
| having a lovely one, whether with family or a bit of peaceful
| coding!
| pmarreck wrote:
| The Christmas our family got our first computer, a Mac 128k,
| stands out.
|
| Also, the Christmas I got the Atari 2600.
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Creating the illusion that Santa exists and left gifts behind.
| dirtybirdnj wrote:
| Growing up in NJ my family got together at my uncles place for
| Christmas, which also happens to be my cousin's birthday. I'm not
| sure if this was directly on the holiday but it WAS winter /
| snowy so we're gonna roll with it.
|
| My dad had brought over a self-propelled walk behind snowblower
| to help my uncle clear a sidewalk in front of the house. My
| cousin and I were doing as kids did in the 90s, running around in
| the snow having fun when we made a discovery. A squirrel had not
| survived the cold and was frozen solid.
|
| My dad and uncle had gone inside for some reason and left the
| snowblower unattended. We decided that it would be really funny
| if we put the squirrel in the snowblower chute, so that when they
| turned it on it would shoot out and we'd all have a good laugh.
|
| Except that isn't what happened. The frozen squirrel blocked the
| auger mechanism from working correctly and after some very
| unpleasant noises some kind of belt or other part broke. The
| squirrel was not hilariously propelled across the sky as
| anticipated / desired.
|
| My dad and uncle were PISSED, I am sure there was some fallout
| but it's gotta be one of my all time favorite holiday / winter
| shenanigans I've been involved with.
|
| On a sad note, this is my first Christmas alone after going
| through divorce earlier this year. I hope you get to spend time
| with your loved ones, and I encourage you to remind them how you
| feel about them. You never know how much time you have left, so
| make the most of it. You have less than you think don't wait.
| Tell them now.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| N64, Sega Genesis, Huffy bikes. Snow once, in the early 2000s in
| Houston.
|
| It's a Wonderful Life each year.
|
| More, but I'm tired, and it's Christmas! Merry Christmas all.
|
| I remember real for trees as a kidm I haven't had one for five or
| more years now.
|
| Not having the internet on Christmas. All is quiet.
|
| Turn off news and social media on Christmas! Just respond to well
| wishes, that's fine.
| johnxie wrote:
| Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone! My dad's birthday is
| on Christmas, so it was always a double celebration. Growing up
| in Queens, we'd sometimes go to Atlantic City, taking a Greyhound
| or driving once we had a car. We'd head to Bally's, enjoy the
| Christmas vibes, and spend hours at the buffet.
|
| Those trips were always fun. This year, he's in a rehab hospital
| on another continent after a stroke, but we're all staying
| hopeful to celebrate together next year.
| reynaldi wrote:
| Merry Christmas, Hacker News! Hope you're staying cozy and
| enjoying time with loved ones.
| gedy wrote:
| Christmas 1992 was in basic military training and for most people
| was a nice dinner and a break from the yelling. Our flight 083
| was the unlucky ones picked for kitchen and cleaning duty...
| Cleaning old food out of a floor drain by hand on Christmas night
| was gross and humbling but has made the Christmases since all the
| more pleasant.
| silisili wrote:
| My favorite memory as a kid was waking up in the middle of the
| night and seeing a large object covered in the living room, and
| thinking it was elves and I had to tip toe back to bed because my
| parents said they'd run off if they saw me. It was a Go-Kart,
| wrapped in a bed sheet. Great gift.
|
| My favorite memory as an adult was filling the kid's stocking
| with nothing but bananas one year. She was 6. At first she was
| pretend excited because she likes bananas, but by the end she was
| digging, pulling them out one by one and saying 'aw man another
| banana' each time. She then asked us why Santa brought her so
| many bananas, and I had to pretend not to know through my tears
| of laughter.
|
| She gets great gifts, just having a bit of fun. We put a banana
| on top of her stocking each year since, but she's old enough now
| to roll her eyes and sigh.
| submeta wrote:
| Yesterday at the Christmas Vespers in Germany. A full church. The
| Christmas story is being told--about Jesus, about the Romans,
| about the darkness in the stable, and how the Christ child is
| born in Bethlehem. But no word about an ongoing Genocide in
| Palestine (the Pope says it's a genocide, all human rights orgs
| say it's genocide). About Israel bombing Palestinians into
| pieces. Sick world.
| Abdumaa wrote:
| Yeah, it feels deeply troubling to see this contrast. I wonder
| who the romans are today... The oppression affects all
| palestinians (not just muslims but also christians). Anyone
| staying silent about this suffering should feel ashamed.
| jamieplex wrote:
| Merry Christmas! Just remembering playing with our new Commodore
| 64, Christmas Day 1982. Good memories.
| egeozcan wrote:
| Merry Christmas! Mutlu Noeller! Frohe Weihnachten!
|
| I was born in Istanbul, a sprawling, chaotic city that's a
| fascinating blend of thousands of cultures. Christmas was always
| a thing there, even under an Islamist regime. As a non-believer,
| I never cared much for religious holidays, but I did enjoy the
| cozy decorations and sipping Gluhwein (mulled wine). Beyond that,
| it didn't mean much to me.
|
| Now I live in Germany. My first Christmas here, back in 2009, was
| quite different. I was alone in a rented room provided by my
| employer, watching TV shows I couldn't understand on a tiny
| screen, just trying to pass the time. My laptop wasn't working
| (the charging cable was broken), and I was bored out of my mind.
|
| Around 6 PM, there was a knock on the door. It was my employer,
| heading to a hippie-style gathering in the forest to celebrate
| Christmas. He figured I might be alone and decided to come in
| person since I hadn't answered my phone.
|
| Of course, I said yes, and it turned out to be one of the most
| heartwarming experiences of my life. The group was incredibly
| kind, and even though I was the only foreigner, they went out of
| their way to make me feel included (switching to English when
| talking to each other, for example). The setting was magical:
| small fires inside carved logs, nature-themed decorations, and
| delicious food I'd never tasted before. I was so happy.
|
| That day, my love for Germany grew a hundredfold.
| Alex-Programs wrote:
| This is sweet. Thanks for sharing.
| flawn wrote:
| I wonder which Islamist Regime you are referring to - the
| current one? :D
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Wonderful!
| jll29 wrote:
| Thanks for sharing! And kudos to a boss who is also a friend -
| there are so many people far away from their loved ones, and
| therefore lonely, on what should be the happiest day of the
| year for all - so everyone, please remember who you could
| invite to share the enjoyment as described here.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| The last christmas I was able to spend with my dad's side of the
| family. My nieces and nephews gathered around the tree -
| absolutely spoiled rotten by their parents and their second
| cousin who had a tech salary and no responsibilities. Their
| _faces_ when they were able to open the gifts of the sort I wish
| I could have had -- a robotics kit, a goo-making set, a diamond
| painting, a nintendo switch game. Being able to give them cool
| things that I hope they continued to enjoy for months to come.
| The feeling of sitting around a bonfire made of present-trash,
| beer in hand, talking about nothing. It 's how I feel Christmas
| should be.
| samanthasu wrote:
| I am Sam. And I wanna say 2024 is definitely a challenging year
| to me as I was laid off and a lot of changes in this year. My fav
| memory from Xmas would be the year of 2019, celebrating with my
| bff in winter wonderland, drinking, laughing, and we were really
| happy since we were still students with no worries at all. Wish
| time could go back
| joisig wrote:
| Hi Sam! It will get better. Merry Xmas from Iceland :)
| MarcusE1W wrote:
| When you are down and in a hole, one small good thing is that
| it goes up in every direction. Merry Christmas Sam and a much
| better 2025.
| egeozcan wrote:
| Hi Sam! I usually just upvote comments on posts like these, but
| I wanted to tell you that things will get better. You'll have
| many more moments in the future that will warm your heart on
| the tougher days.
| mau013 wrote:
| Hi Sam!! Weather your storm. It will pass. Trust that you will
| find your way out of this. Merry Xmas from Spain :D
| throw-qqqqq wrote:
| Merry Christmas and best wishes from Denmark.
|
| Your favorite memory warms my heart.
|
| I hope 2025 brings you more luck than 2024 did.
| pewpew_ wrote:
| Sam, things always work themselves out for the better. You will
| be fine, keep moving forward.
|
| Merry Christmas!
| jamestdsmith wrote:
| This too shall pass. Life goes on and up. Many times I've felt
| that something bad happened to me. But a few years later I
| realise it was a blessing in disguise
|
| Merry Christmas Sam
| grumblepeet wrote:
| The few golden years when the kids were little, we'd all sit
| around the TV and play console games and when a hard bit came
| along, like a puzzle or a jump or a big boss with loads of guns,
| I'd be handed the controls to do the difficult bits. I got to be
| the family hero. We had great fun. A few years later, they all
| had way faster reaction times, and their own PC's and games, and
| played them in their rooms. But for a few glorious Christmas' we
| all came together and it was great. I miss those times, but on
| the other hand I helped them build their own PC systems, and set
| them off on the own paths. I helped them grow.
| jadenPete wrote:
| Merry Christmas!
|
| Up until I was about 10 years old, my family would drive to my
| grandparents' house every year to celebrate Christmas Eve with my
| extended family. We'd track Santa using the NORAD Santa tracker
| (which, by coincidence, reports Santa being in San Francisco as I
| type this) and open presents from my grandparents.
|
| One year, I got a Kindle Fire, which was the first computing
| device I called my own. Because I didn't have my own computer and
| the family computer was usually being used, I did most of my
| early programming on the Kindle by downloading an app called AIDE
| that allowed me to compile Android apps on Android (of which the
| Kindle ran a modified version) and sideload them. By the time
| next Christmas had rolled around, I'd built my first complete
| Android application--a graphing calculator complete with support
| for basic algebraic expressions, trigonometric functions, and a
| page that explained what every supported mathematical function
| did and how it worked. I was so excited to show my cousins and
| grandparents.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| _" Why is the top bar of HN red? Oh yeah... It's Christmas."_
|
| - Me, pretty much every year.
|
| Got my TRS-80 Color Computer 2 in 1981. Much of my entire life
| was shaped by that computer.
| remarkEon wrote:
| Merry Christmas!
|
| I don't actually have this memory, since I was 2 and a half years
| old.
|
| My parents wanted to go back to South Dakota and have a proper
| "family" Christmas, with all of the cousins and all of the
| babies. Well, Christmas was had and then the temp dropped to
| -30degF. My parents scrambled to get me into the car and drove
| overnight from South Dakota back to Minneapolis to try and escape
| the storm.
| antirez wrote:
| Writing dump1090 in my parent's house :D Waiting for the only
| plane crossing the center of the Sicily during xmas time haha. In
| general, hacking here in Campobello di Licata at day, then at
| night finding all my friends, drinking with them till 4AM, then
| looping again: code -> gym -> drinking, all this in the
| background of staying with family.
| ablation wrote:
| You wrote dump1090? Wow. Thanks very much. You've brought me a
| lot of joy as a hobby. And merry Christmas.
| antirez wrote:
| So happy to hear that! Thank you :)
| blankx32 wrote:
| agree, great tool, thanks
| bigodbiel wrote:
| Merry Christmas All
| ashitlerferad wrote:
| As a JW I never celebrated either. It's strange because my wife
| is Lutheran and she's probably the most excited adult about
| Christmas I've ever met. Bakes the Ham, turkey, Christmas PJs,
| Love Actually, Home Alones and gifts Christmas morning.
|
| I love seeing her happy as much as I love food. So it works out.
| I don't get involved beyond what I would do on a regular day
| which is be happy for her, have good conversation and banter and
| eat a lot of food.
|
| People will say well if you are not active, what's the big deal?
| Well, It's like how parents might give advice when you're younger
| and some of it you outgrow or choose not to follow as you become
| an adult, but certain lessons stick with you for life because
| they feel fundamentally true. They become part of who you are.
| For me, not celebrating Christmas is like this. Even though I'm
| not actively practicing as a Jehovah's Witness, that teaching
| still aligns with my values and feels like the right thing to
| continue avoiding it. It's also a sign of respect and a nod to my
| beliefs.
| bibelo wrote:
| Hi bro
| snozolli wrote:
| _and a nod to my beliefs._
|
| You could have just said that you're still a believer. Not
| being 'active' doesn't mean anything if you're still a
| believer.
|
| I don't know why you'd refuse to embrace the joy of Christmas
| in your situation. Self-denial and suffering aren't noble
| virtues, contrary to what religion loves to tell people. It's
| okay to enjoy things.
| MarcusE1W wrote:
| Merry Christmas everyone.
|
| Every year it reminds me how I eventually became an IT
| professional.
|
| My parents took us children to the village restaurant before
| Christmas. Must have been 1983. Then we were asked what we wish
| for Christmas and I had not really thought about that, yet. Some
| of my friends have been talking about a computer. I had no idea
| what exactly that meant or what to use it for but it sounded
| cool. Computer. Also I knew that the brand was Commodore.
|
| So when asked what I want for Christmas I said "A Commodore
| computer".
|
| The next day it dawned on me that it might be a good idea to find
| out what my Christmas wish actually was. In a toy catalog I found
| a Commodore C64 computer and decided that must be my Christmas
| whish. I started collecting the limited info that was publicly
| availabe about computer.
|
| In a proper Christmas story I would get my C64 and live happily
| ever after. But my parents were not sure if such an expensive
| present should be bought.
|
| My mother found a book about the basics of Computers though and I
| got that later for birthday. Now I really wanted one. I sometimes
| took a 30 min. Bus ride to the neighbour university town and
| there was a department store with a computer department and you
| were allowed to try them. So all you had to do is use the book to
| prepare some BASIC programme at home in paper. Take the bus, find
| a free computer in the store, key the programme in, hope that it
| works on that version of BASIC and you had a programme.
|
| 2 years later my parents seemed convinced that I really wanted a
| computer and got me a C128. Much better BASIC for structured
| programming. And from then I happily lived ever after. Or so.
| yodsanklai wrote:
| Was going to share a very similar story, I got my first
| computers for Christmas. We got first a C64 which got me into
| "programming", but I think it was the Amiga which made me the
| happiest. It was such an upgrade compared to the C64.
|
| Whenever I feel stress, overworked, or frustrated with
| colleagues as an IT professional, I remember what got me into
| programming and all the fun I had with these computers.
| MarcusE1W wrote:
| The Amiga was my second computer too. And I have spend all my
| money on the M2 Modula 2 compiler.
|
| Then I could do computer school homework in M2 on my Amiga
| and just had to translate it to Turbo Pascal in school to
| submit it :-)
| michaelsbradley wrote:
| Merry Christmas
|
| Christus natus est
|
| O Khristos gennietai
|
| Khristos razhdaetsia
|
| hmshykh nvld
|
| bn llh ywld lywm
| codetrotter wrote:
| One of my favorite memories is Christmas year 2000, when I was
| with my father and my grandparents on his side, and my father had
| bought a PlayStation 2 for me. Me and him stayed up long playing
| Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy.
|
| We were a bit scared to even stop playing, because we didn't have
| any memory card to save progress on at first. But we left the
| console powered on over night and resumed playing the next day,
| and did the same for the next few days and then my father went
| and bought a memory card so we could save the progress.
|
| Good times :)
| FlyingSnake wrote:
| Merry Christmas
|
| Feliz Natal
|
| naataalcyaa haardik shubhecchaa!
|
| As a kid born on X'mas eve, Christmas has been special to me,
| even in the dusty provincial non-Christian town of Central India.
|
| After moving to Germany, and having a kid, I appreciate Christmas
| (Weihnachtsferien) even more nowadays. What a wonderful season of
| festivity
|
| May this festival season bring happiness and joy to you and your
| loved ones.
| noufalibrahim wrote:
| I don't celebrate it but I do have a memory.
|
| It was at my first job and first time away from home. I was
| single and so was a colleague from work.
|
| There was no one in the office that night. So we installed unreal
| tournament, played "mistress of Christmas" out loud, ordered in
| some food from a nearby restaurant and played a lan game till
| past midnight. Then we went home.
| germandiago wrote:
| Merry Christmas. Feliz Navidad. Bon Nadal.
|
| Back at the end of eighties and beginning nineties I used to go
| to my uncle and aunt (my mom's immediately old sister) home and I
| would spend time with my cousins, from which three of them were
| orphans. Fortunately the family could take care of everyone.
|
| I would spend time with one of my orphan cousins (we are just one
| year apart) and my older sister playing some games like hide and
| seek around the house, I was hardly 7-8 yo.
|
| My uncle and aunt are not among us anymore but at least I keep
| nice memories.
|
| This was in Spain. Currently I am in Asia.
| xenocratus wrote:
| For some reason a lot of my memories from early days are lost
| (despite not being that far back), but I do fondly remember us
| visiting some neighbours, playing Monopoly with the kids of the
| household (good friends at the time, that I've since long lost
| contact with) until late, then getting back home to find presents
| under the tree. I've now forgotten what the presents were, but
| vividly remember my mum leaving to "get something from the flat"
| as we were playing :)
|
| Craciun fericit! I can only hope for more peace in the world for
| the next year.
| t43562 wrote:
| Merry Christmas everyone! Thanks for this great website where it
| is possible to have intellectual discussions no matter what odd
| and lonely place one might be living in. :-)
|
| I have had to recreate Christmas for my family on my own - my
| wife is Turkish and although she is not highly religious
| (especially about food!) it was not a "thing" for her for most of
| her life.
|
| When I was living in Istanbul with her, Christmas was just
| another working day although I noticed a somewhat wistful
| attitude - people who sort of wished to join in but felt they
| were on the outside. The occasional Christmas tree. It was very
| odd for me. I couldn't surmount those odds and I also had never
| had to be the initiator. When my mum died years and years ago,
| everything died.
|
| Back in the UK it's easier and I have a daughter so I HAVE to
| make it happen. I'm not that good at it but today my daughter,
| without telling me, filled my christmas stocking :-) So the bug
| has caught on. :-)
|
| Now it's time to have breakfast and open presents from under the
| tree.
|
| I wish a very joyful day to everyone. I risk controversy by
| saying that Christmas was not originally a religious festival and
| whatever religion you are, you're not excluded from enjoying it.
| It was a "middle-of-winter" party and I think it was to keep
| Northern Europeans spirits up at the darkest time of the year.
| That it has turned into "good will to all men" is great but it
| isn't owned by any church.
| sim7c00 wrote:
| I dont like christmas atall. no good memories. i tried to escape
| it by marrying a muslim but now she wants to celebrate too. god i
| wish today was over already and i just woke up. merry christmas
| everyone <3
| maz1b wrote:
| Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all celebrating!
| aszantu wrote:
| Just realized, i only have one. Eating with a stranger at xmas
| eve in the netherlands. We were both avoiding our families
| because we both hate to be around fam around xmas.
| omnee wrote:
| So many beautiful stories. Merry Christmas Everyone!
| herbst wrote:
| Spending my Christmas in a caravan somewhere way south of Spain,
| in a quiet remote corner with only my favourite 2 people
| (including my dog). No presents, no family dinners. Definitely
| the best Christmas for a long while.
| wyclif wrote:
| For me it was Christmas 1977 when me and my little brother got an
| Atari 2600 console. We spent almost the entire day (except for
| taking a break for meals) playing all the variations of Combat.
|
| Later, in 1980, I bought Adventure with my paper route money and
| I had hours of fun playing that and trying to figure it out. When
| I finally found the Warren Robinette-created easter egg, I was
| ecstatic. Unfortunately, even though I was a huge fan of
| Adventure, it is the type of action-adventure game that when you
| solve the quest you quickly lose interest.
|
| 1980 was probably peak Atari 2600. By 1982, with the release of
| E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the game was so terrible and rushed
| to market so quickly and was so obviously shovelware that I moved
| on from the platorm.
|
| I miss those days though. More than anything else the Atari 2600
| was what got me into learning BASIC a few years later on the
| TRS-80 and the IBM PC.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Funny you should mention ET. It was indeed shovelware, Howard's
| group was challenged to get a movie-tie-in game out in 12 weeks
| and he volunteered. Worked like a slave to get something that
| looked like a game, had at least one play mechanic, titles and
| animation! All with a tiny processor with negligible memory
| that had to turn the electron beam on and off in timing loops.
| Still proud that he got anything at all that worked. Proud of
| the notoriety as well, Howard is like that!
|
| Now he's a family counselor, a good one too. I see him a couple
| times a month at Movie Night, another old friend hosts those
| and we get good attendance even though we haven't worked
| together for forty years.
|
| Merry Christmas!
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| I remember my Hindu-Jewish Christmas. I was working at a startup
| in the midwest. We hired lots of graduated students, including
| one from Israel and one from Bangalore India. They were curious
| about Christmas so we invited them to come to ours!
|
| Two young kids under 10, a new house in the country and perfect
| weather. They arrived, and since they had heard about the gift-
| giving part they brought gifts! For the family, way nicer than
| they had to for a hostess gift but exclamations all around and
| thanks and we use that giant red baking pot to this day.
|
| The Indian lad was just married and she was so curious and funny
| and happy to be with family - they had found America to be so
| quiet and empty! To be in a full house again with kids and noise
| and decorations and ceremony - she was ecstatic.
|
| We introduced all the foods (my wife was a champ and had come up
| with things everybody could eat! A Christmas miracle in itself)
| and the trappings (lights and trees and drinks and songs) and had
| a lovely loud silly evening.
|
| Later, each of those co-worker mentioned independently that
| though they'd lived in America for years, that was the very first
| time they'd been invited into an American's home. They were so
| grateful. Even today, thirty years later, I can call either of
| those guys and be greeted like an old Uncle.
|
| So yeah, I remember that one from time to time and smile.
| michaelhoney wrote:
| I'm six years old: we're travelling and our family is in London
| staying in a hotel. I watch Speed Racer on television on
| Christmas Eve, and they jump over a gap and something clicks and
| I "get" momentum. That night the anticipation is almost
| unbearable and I pretend to sleep as my parents set out presents.
| In the morning we get up and the best present I get is a junior
| science encyclopaedia. That day the weather is terrible, so we
| stay inside and read and we order chicken sandwiches from room
| service.
| shannifin wrote:
| Christmas 1996, I was 11. We finally got a modern computer with
| Windows 95, a CD-ROM drive, speakers, Oregon Trail 2... It was
| magical! The only time I ever wept with joy over a Christmas
| present.
| frereubu wrote:
| Christmas in 1982/3 in the UK, I was praying desperately for a ZX
| Spectrum so I could play Manic Miner like my nephews (who, due to
| a generational slip were more like my cousins) and was genuinely
| crushed when I opened my present to find that it was a BBC Micro
| Model B. The horror! Although Elite did make up for quite a bit
| of that, the game scene on the BBC was so much worse (or at least
| it felt so) and I ended up copying code by hand for games from
| magazines, which I'm pretty sure was what my parents intended.
| Fast forward to now, and I'm running a successful web agency,
| having worked my way through various internet-related jobs in
| interesting organisations like the BBC, universities and others.
| So a belated and slightly begrudging thanks to my dad and mum for
| their foresight.
| sangeeth96 wrote:
| Merry Christmas y'all!
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| I was born in the late 60s so none of my childhood Christmas
| memories involve digital technology. But a memory that stands out
| was the year that I got a telescope for Christmas.
|
| I was maybe about ten. It was fairly average refractor on a
| wooden tripod but, growing up in an environment where things like
| that weren't the norm, I didn't understand that at the time.
|
| On Christmas day my family, my aunts and uncles and cousins,
| would all cram themselves into my grandparent's small council
| house for Christmas dinner. Then the kids would play with their
| toys and try not to get stood on by the slighly tipsy adults. Too
| many people in too small a space, but I have happy memories.
|
| When it got dark, that time, I took my new scope out into my
| grandparent's small front garden to look at the moon and try
| (unsuccessfully as I remember) to locate a planet. It was very
| cold, and people wandering past kept asking me what I was doing.
| I could hear everyone indoors talking and laughing. Eventually it
| started to snow very lightly, so I packed up and stood watching
| the snow for a while and then went back indoors.
|
| That was amost fifty years ago, but I remember how my universe
| suddenly got hugely bigger that day. And the snowflakes coming
| down in the dark.
|
| I passed the telescope on to five year old friend a few years
| ago. I don't know what she makes of it though: she can get images
| from the Hubble and James Webb on her tablet, if she wants.
|
| Merry Christmas everyone.
| 4dregress wrote:
| Merry Xmas, I hope you all have a great day!
| sneak wrote:
| 1991. I received a Super Nintendo on Christmas morning at age 7.
| Within minutes I was playing the single bundled game on a large
| Trinitron CRT in the living room.
|
| It's more than 30 years later and I still regard SMW as the best
| video game ever made.
| taatparya wrote:
| At our company, we celebrated Christmas today exchanging gifts
| despite not having a single Christian person in our staff.
|
| One of the junior introverted female developer was coaxed into
| being the Santa for gift distribution. She really shines as Santa
| and thoroughly enjoyed it. What's more, she even coaxed others to
| dance while accepting the gift and everybody has a good time.
|
| My most memorable so far.
| p0w3n3d wrote:
| My best/funniest Christmas memory time was when there was a huge
| cold outside, so the ice froze some antenna cables together. Not
| sure what was the physics behind it, but the result was I got a
| cable television in our TV even despite we didn't pay for it. I
| could watch many foreign channels, except for cartoon network
| which was on the same channel as another channel from
| terrestrial, hence these were overlaying together and not
| possible to watch. Later when the freezing cold faded away, we
| bought the cable and I could better learn English from watching
| Cartoon Network and as a result now I can work as a software
| engineer
| monkeydust wrote:
| Getting a Nintendo NES with Super Mario 3, was probably 10 :-p
| Wasserpuncher wrote:
| Merry Christmas!
| zulban wrote:
| 1992 my family just got a VCR but hardly had any tapes. For some
| reason my sister and brother were obsessed with Home Alone and as
| the youngest and a toddler, I played along with the excitement.
| My dad set up "some new movie" to play in our basement but said
| he couldn't get Home Alone, saying it cost too much, sorry. We
| eagerly watched the title intro which in retrospect, was
| obviously Home Alone. Once the oldest sibling finally read "Home
| Alone" we all completely lost our minds.
|
| We even have this whole thing on video.
| DoctorOetker wrote:
| Is there going to be a 2024 Donald Knuth Christmas Lecture?
| dgan wrote:
| When i arrived in France, i couldn't help but notice that people
| celebrate New Year ar 25 December instead of 1st January.
| eventually, after learning the language, I understood that it is
| actually another thing altogether!
| devilbunny wrote:
| Merry Christmas indeed. Even if you're not Christian. The holiday
| has become larger than the religion, and I think that is
| something Jesus would have liked. His point was always love.
| SchwKatze wrote:
| Merry Christmas! I love this community, hope you all enjoy this
| time
| borski wrote:
| Happy Hanukkah as well! It starts tonight. :)
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| I grew up in a family with eight kids. Mom was stay at home and
| Dad did well, but with eight kids each individual kid received a
| few mostly modest presents.
|
| When I was in college and home for Thanksgiving, my folks invited
| everyone out to dinner. After ordering, my dad would often
| introduce a topic of discussion that we'd bat around until the
| food came. That year he said: if you didn't need to worry about
| money or success, what other career path might you find
| interesting. Without much thought I said, I'd like to play
| electric bass, due to the fact that when I listened to albums, I
| was really mostly following the bass. I don't even recall what my
| other siblings said.
|
| On Christmas day there were the usual gifts: socks and underwear,
| a couple of new shirts, and a book or two. But after that was all
| done, my dad said: tomorrow when the music store is open, let's
| go buy a bass. It was a $200 hondo (a fender p-bass knockoff) and
| a 15 watt Crate amp. What an extravagant gift! I'm 60 now and
| still playing, though never professionally. :-)
| bradleyy wrote:
| I also play electric bass, and love this story. The real
| question is: do you still have the Hondo?
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| No, the hondo is long gone. After college, when I had a job,
| I bought a much better bass. I don't have any recollection
| what I did with the hondo. It would have been the mid to late
| 80s, so there was no craigslist to sell it.
|
| That hondo had action so high I needed to attach a parachute
| to each note I played.
| zoomablemind wrote:
| > ...That year he said: if you didn't need to worry about money
| or success, what other career path might you find interesting.
|
| Such a wise way to both elicit ideas and encourage
| introspection. Very inspiring!
| fumeux_fume wrote:
| My fondest memories of Christmas are from childhood when we'd
| spend Christmas eve and day at my grandparents house in Pasadena
| with my aunts and uncles and their families. The kids usually
| shared a few rooms and in the morning our stockings would be hung
| on the doorknobs so we could entertain ourselves silly putty,
| highlights magazines, and slinkies while the adults slept in.
| However, the Christmas gift I'll never forget was my first DVD
| player. It was a discounted Proscan model, but still cost a
| bundle back when VHS was the dominant format. While fiddling with
| the menu for The Matrix, I stumbled upon the commentary track
| which I had no understanding of. I finally pieced together that I
| was listening to the directors talk about the movie as they
| watched it, as if we were in the same room together. This kinda
| blew my mind and set me down a path at a young age of
| appreciation for movies as an art form and dialogue between
| artist and viewer rather than just passive entertainment.
| darepublic wrote:
| Waking up at 5 in the morning and playing shareware computer
| games on our IBM 286 with my sister. My dad discovering this and
| joining us.
| maxcruer wrote:
| Too bad I had to be in the hospital :(
| Unbeliever69 wrote:
| The one thing that really stands out about Christmas growing up
| was how amazing my dad was at giving gifts that sparked my
| curiosity about the world. Instead of focusing on toys and games,
| he often chose books (scientific) and kits (RadioShack). While
| today you can easily find gifts that combine fun and learning,
| growing up in the '70s and '80s, it was usually one or the other.
| That's not to say I didn't enjoy a good toy or game--they could
| also stimulate imagination and creativity--but it was the books
| and kits that truly shaped who I would become.
|
| I also had an aunt who loved giving magazine subscriptions.
| Thanks to her, I had long-running subscriptions to Discover,
| Scientific American, Omni, and later BYTE. And, of course, the
| most important one of all: Dungeon!
| hypertexthero wrote:
| The Snowman, 1982, with original introduction:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjMNtEKHURU
| corytheboyd wrote:
| A simple one!
|
| One year it was just my parents and I for Christmas. None of us
| are that big on elaborate gift giving, we just want to see each
| other. Unknowingly we had all purchased some form of booze for
| one another, so we spent the evening chatting with libations by
| the fire, it was wonderful :)
| nickpsecurity wrote:
| Merry Christmas, Hacker News!
|
| Today is a day made for celebrating the birth of Christ. Later, a
| tradition of giving gifts and spending time with family. I pray
| God blesses you in each of these things.
|
| If anyone here is unfamiliar with what Christmas is, this page
| has links explaining the birth of Christ and why it's one of
| history's greatest events:
|
| https://www.desiringgod.org/topics/the-birth-of-christ
| octopoc wrote:
| Actually gift giving at the winter solstice far predates Jesus.
| For instance the tradition of Santa coming down the chimney
| comes from a time in Britain when there was a terrible
| snowstorm and the poor people were starving. The Druids had
| food to give them but couldn't get in the doors because the
| snow was so deep. So they sent the food down the chimneys!
|
| Having said that, merry Christmas!!
| gosub100 wrote:
| Christmas '98, my mom went to the local computer tech and bought
| me the 166mhz _MMX_ CPU. I was stoked (but admittedly a little
| bit frustrated it wasn 't the 233mhz). As silly as this seems,
| the black lacquered laminate (instead of the gray ceramic on my
| 133mhz or 100mhz or whatever I had) made me feel like I went from
| a nova to a corvette. I fondly remember getting excited about
| that kind of stuff. Also that same year, my first intro to 3D,
| playing motocross madness with my highschool friend on my (or
| probably his) new voodoo 3DFX card. It was magical.
| Tepix wrote:
| Indeed, seeing the 3dfx in action for the first time was super
| magical.
| jonpurdy wrote:
| Growing up celebrating Xmas in Canada resulted in me dreading the
| month before with Xmas music and decorations everywhere. As an
| adult I love that I can mostly choose not to celebrate (aside
| from parents and inlaws). Even living in Korea I avoided the
| celebrations but couldn't avoid the decorations.
|
| But I do really enjoy one single thing about the holidays: the
| VLC icon getting a Santa hat a couple of weeks before Dec 25.
|
| VLC has been doing this as long as I can remember (earlier than
| 2005?) and it's literally the one thing I look forward to for the
| holidays.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| I'm secular and Xmas for us meant unbounded time in the snow
| after possibly fun toys when little, as the Santa thing we knew
| as Santa far more than anything religious.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| Merry Xmas everyone.
|
| PS1 has got to be my most memorable gift. That loading screen is
| burned into the OLED of my subconscious.
|
| I like how jakebasile put it though:
|
| > Some of the finest memories are just a jumble of similar
| situations though.
|
| Archetypical Xmas AM is me, my brother, and my mom. It was always
| a huge exercise of my willpower to wait for my brother (5 years
| older, lifelong night owl) to wake up. My single mom would always
| lavish us in gifts. We were relatively poor in our area; Xmas was
| the day she made us feel as wealthy as kings. I later learned
| that she sometimes racked up huge credit card debt to give us
| this experience. I haven't done an Xmas tree for myself in years
| but when our baby comes I will for sure revive that magical
| experience for her. In the late AM we would drive over to my
| aunt/uncle/cousins and enjoy bagels, talk about the gifts we got,
| and watch movies. Everyone stayed in cozy pajamas all day, I
| think that's a small but important part of why this day often
| felt different.
|
| In later years Xmas Eve is now my fondest jumble of memories.
| Growing up, we did not have people at the house. I resented my
| mom's antisociality a bit. But then one year, the family member
| who usually hosted Xmas Eve said they were tired of it. Quite the
| surprise to everyone when my mom said she would host the next
| party! She's now been hosting it for 10+ years and it's always a
| good time every year. I'm very proud of her for coming out of her
| shell and being the sturdy/reliable anchor that brings the family
| together every year.
| blowsand wrote:
| Merry Christmas!
| parentheses wrote:
| First "proper" Christmas in the US (7 years after moving here)
| where I got Quake III Arena. It sparked a life long love of
| programming that has yet to subside.
|
| As a non Christian immigrant, my parents did their best to
| understand and embrace the "good parts" of Christmas. We went
| from just having dinner to now exchanging presents and spending
| time together as a family. My wife is from the US and grew up
| with Christmas being a very big deal (and lavish with presents).
| She took it to the next level once we got together. Now, with
| kids, it's taken on a new life.
|
| So, I guess my real answer: Christmas just gets better every
| year. I hope it continues to for me and does for all of you!
|
| Good health, wealth and tidings to all of you - kindred spirits
| from all around the world!
| snozolli wrote:
| Sometime between maybe '79 and '83, there was a particularly
| memorable Christmas. We drove across the state to my
| grandparents' huge ranch home (I visited the new owners as an
| adult, turns out it was a normal-sized house). Waking up on
| Christmas morning with all my cousins, aunts, and uncles there,
| anxiously waiting while Grandpa built a fire in the fireplace,
| absolutely dying to finally open presents. Some adult walked in
| dressed as Santa to hand out presents and I never did figure out
| who it was.
| ddingus wrote:
| Merry Christmas!
|
| Thank all of you for being here and for the most part, being
| real.
|
| We are a fundamentally good crowd.
|
| Be nice to one another please. It counts in this world. A world
| where guilty pleasures like this one we share are seemingly on
| the way out, back filled with soulless places nobody really cares
| about.
| rvba wrote:
| Building the plastic christmas tree.. with my cat.
|
| First taking out the branches from the top shelves of the closet.
| What was supervised by her - every branch had to be checked and
| smelled. After the branches were remowed she would laudly meow to
| be put on the shelf. For inspection.
|
| Then she would demand to be taken down (or would jump out with a
| loud thud) and lie down on a branches.
|
| Finally after some discussion the christmas tree could be build.
| She would supervise the whole process, look at the lamps, inspect
| the decorations with paws and lie observing them. Happy meows and
| loud purrs all the time.
|
| Then she would lie near the christmass tree in triumph.
|
| I miss my cat. She was very friendly and talkative
| doormatt wrote:
| I'm sorry for your loss - cats can be the most loving creatures
| imaginable.
| sebastian_z wrote:
| A joyous Christmas to everyone. Calling on Mary is voluntary [1].
|
| [1] https://genius.com/Aimee-mann-calling-on-mary-lyrics.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| I don't have many good Christmas memories, so I would probably
| say my favorite is when I received Pokemon Gold and a Gameboy
| Color at age 5. That game opened up a lot for me and had a huge
| influence on my life, philosophy and career.
|
| Merry Christmas, everyone. Hug 'em if you got 'em.
| joemazerino wrote:
| Having the extended family over and the boys would all be playing
| outside until the street lights came on, and then inside to play
| whatever game came out. Clay fighter, mortal kombat, donkey kong
| country etc.
|
| My family would pull straws to see which man would dress up as
| Santa clause and go door to door on my street to greet kids and
| give the adults some baileys or whiskey.
|
| Great times. Merry Christmas.
| formerlurker wrote:
| Merry Christmas to you too!
| jll29 wrote:
| A very happy Christmas memory was from when I was sick with
| measles as a kid (perhaps aged 5?), wrapped in many layers of
| blankets on my grandparents' sofa, watching the Christmas tree
| and listening to everyone's conversation and Christmas songs on
| TV. Despite being slightly feverish and covered with red dots all
| over, I was the most happy child.
|
| The most _nerdy_ Christmas was when I returned to my mom's house
| as a student (probably Chris Rea playing when I rode home on the
| train.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDt3u2Ev1cI ), and the
| only kit within reach there was an old Atari ST 520+ with a copy
| of Berkeley Yacc (Bison) on 3.5" floppy disk next to it. I
| happened to have an (unrelated) machine learning paper in my
| backpack, so I dedided to reimplement the paper in Yacc on this
| ancient machine, which was most gratifying (no man pages, no Web,
| no StackExchange, ...).
| thr0waway001 wrote:
| MERRY CHRISTMAS YO!
| prydt wrote:
| Merry Christmas!
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| My (14yrs older) brother stared a business on the back of our
| rural property and later build a home on acreage next door. The
| biz was a mixed bag for my mom and us. I had steady work from
| 9-19 (along w/ all of my friends) but all the peace and quiet
| went away.
|
| That slowly became a schism between our already chaotic
| households (his wife, my mom) It culminated with him buying my
| 100yo birth home, suddenly evicting us and then razing the house
| to make sure we never returned. I was 19 and homeless. Also, my
| mom had terminal cancer.
|
| Nevertheless, my best Christmas memory is just me and my brother
| and a walk in the woods. There isn't much to it other than an
| exceptional moment where having a brother felt like a good thing.
|
| When I was 16, we (Wash DC region) had a rare white Christmas. My
| brother called the house early and invited me to walk. No
| families, just us, the snow and the woods (the land _was_ my
| childhood and is all gone now). Mostly he called me because he
| had coke and wanted company. (His wife didn 't know; he did quit
| after.)
|
| For that hour or so, we were happy and unburdened by everything
| we'd ever done to each other. The morning felt like a gift.
| Probably our last one.
| ninjamayo wrote:
| Merry Christmas to everyone! I've read a few great stories in
| here and thought of sharing mine. My childhood Christmas were
| never that special unfortunately and during my teen years, life
| was pretty tough. But I do have great memories from all the
| Christmas I had my wife over the past 20 years. We established a
| lot of Christmas traditions for our families, since I never had
| any from my childhood to share. Actually we just finished
| watching the Raiders of the Lost Ark and spent two hours talking
| about great cinema and of course me playing the Indiana Jones
| game from Lucasarts. Oh wish, I could get back in time and play
| that game for the first time. Not quite the same playing it these
| days, the magic unfortunately is gone.
|
| So yeah today was a great Christmas day! All the best to the HN
| community.
| loumf wrote:
| I took digital electronics when I was in high school. Some
| classmates wrote a version of "The 12 Days of Christmas" except
| with names of chips instead of the usual gifts.
|
| The only line I can remember is "Five 555s"
| v8xi wrote:
| Christmas 1999 my father's business had just gone under when the
| banks stopped lending after the dot com bubble. We didn't have
| any presents until Christmas morning when our church dropped off
| a bunch of presents for us. We got a Razor scooter and I spent
| all day riding it downstairs. I just got my daughter a scooter
| and she's doing the same this year :)
| thomasfromcdnjs wrote:
| My friend brought over a blow up pool and beers. Took us 6 hours
| before we realized we both had our shorts on backwards.
| Yawrehto wrote:
| Have a merry Christmas, wonderful Hannukah, and, if you're
| atheist, a wonderful...birthday of Isaac Newton?
| weishigoname wrote:
| Merry Christmas! every Christmas is memorable when family gather
| together and share what changed during this year.
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| Wish all well. Silence night after then gift opening (sorry the
| argument to wait for boxing days lost)
|
| TL;dr.
|
| No need like the communist china to object to Xmas so much that
| is it since 2023 (?) say silence night should be used to remember
| those soliders they sent to fight in North Korea against USA
| army, mostly died due to freezing cold and anyway many are not
| pla but nationalist surrender soldiers.
|
| Let us have a little kindness, even if atheists or communists.
| Fir one second.
| dusted wrote:
| Christmas of 1996, a ten year old boy was spending christmas day
| in front of his TV, connected to it was his Commodore 64. The boy
| was angry and sad, and ashamed of being angry and sad, because
| his parents couldn't afford to buy him a PC, he knew it was an
| unreasonable wish, and he knew he could not get it. He was
| ashamed of his sadness and anger over not being able to get a PC
| (it was all he'd ever wanted since he was 6 years old), and so he
| didn't want to participate in the christmas dinner, he just
| wanted to be left alone in his dark and sad room and play
| Kickstart 2. He knew he was a little brat for feeling so, but
| alas he couldn't help himself, he felt like the future was
| rushing past without him.
|
| After much convincing from his patient grandmother, the boy
| finally participated, his parents knew he had a hard time, and
| they told him that there was a present for him before the dinner
| (in our tradition, we open presents on christmas eve, after the
| dinner), so he thought they were taking pity on him, he said no,
| he didn't want any presents.
|
| They asked him softly to consider it again, and he heard
| something in their voices and a feeling of intense shame came
| over him, he saw the giant boxes, inside it, a brand new PC,
| gifted from a wealthy, but distant relative who "thought it might
| be healthy for the boys development of his interest". He cried,
| out of shame, and out of happiness, and he grew up so much in
| those moments, to feel so undeserving and yet grateful. That
| computer was with him the next 6 years, a 100 mhz pentium, 16 mib
| of RAM, 814 mib (fat32 formatted) harddisk, 4x CD rom drive. 14"
| color monitor, windows 95, 3 button logitech ps/2 mouse, and ESS
| AudioDrive sound card(soundblaster 100% compatible). On that
| machine, he learned so much, and when he trashed it, there was
| nobody to help him format it, so in time, he figured it out, by
| trail and error, how to format and reinstall windows and drivers.
| What a time to be alive. That computer was upgraded with a Voodoo
| card, a CD burner, an ISA network card (he dragged it to many
| LANs at friends houses and at the local youth club), at some
| point 32 mib ram was added too. That machine sits behind me right
| now, still fully functional. It's not an understatement to say
| that that experience formed me as a human being, as well as
| helped shape my future and career, having unlimited and
| unrestrained access to a computer as a kid probably saved my life
| in more ways than one. So that is one of my favorite christmas
| memories.
| gsch1 wrote:
| Growing up in South Brazil, my childhood was filled with tropical
| vibes. I remember the sweltering heat, with temperatures often
| between 29-35degC. Santa Claus, dressed in winter clothes, would
| be sweating and nearly fainting. Our holiday meals were a unique
| mix of turkey and barbecue, and the adults always had plenty of
| beer. It was always a big family reunion, with 15-30 people
| gathering together. Crazy to think about it.
| jamexcb wrote:
| I received an empty, small blue plastic toolbox. For me, it was
| the most amazing thing because now I had my own toolbox, like my
| father and i could add anything to it. I still have that box. I
| love it.
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