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Christmas In September

A couple years back we did something like this and it worked out fine, so here's hoping it'll work well again, in this somewhat expanded form.

There was a game system at the time that older son Travis wanted, we knew it would become more difficult to find (along with a couple of key games) once we came close to Christmas, there were deals to be had on it months ahead of time and the thought of not only receiving them in secret (probably having it delivered to me at work) but having to hide the damned things for several months bordered on ridiculous, and that we might do all of that only to find on Christmas day that something was missing or not working properly... so with the open understanding that this was his Christmas present, we gave it to him months ahead of time. He was happy, and there were no dark emotions over it come Christmas.

This year the item in question is the X-Box 360 system, complete with a second wireless controller and two games:
Dead Rising, a Dawn of the Dead-like adventure as one finds himself trapped in a shopping mall over-run with zombies. Along with touting improved graphics and sound the game promises to allow players to make use of anything one can find in the mall as a potential weapon. (This is the one I want to play.)

&

Chromehounds - an armored vehicle, squad-based military game. (I was surprised this was a top want for them, as generally they eschew anything that pulls less than a 8 out of 10 on the gamer's ratings.)
- and this time it's a Christmas present for both Travis and Nick.

(Side note: We've already determined that 12 of the X-Box games we own are backwards-compatible for the system.)

It's set to arrive Friday -- well, at least all of the system bits. The games were shipped separately, probably a day or two earlier, via a different shipping method, and could even be part of today's mail... though they might roll in next week.

I'll update you on how it goes in the short term, and then again come December 25th when all that's left to come to the kids from us is closer to the stocking stuffer level, primarily leaving relatives to prop things up with their presents.


It's a crazy plan, but it just... might... work!

Comments

Jodi said…
I did something like that a couple of years ago, too...Joseph was hot to have an IPod. He told everyone to give him nothing but money because he was saving for an IPod. He had about half of it by early November. I found a deal, ordered it, gave it to him, with the understanding that he paid me the other half at Christmas. Then I surprised him by cutting off what my contribution would have been, and he ended up with enough cash to buy a bunch of Itunes. AND he got to take the IPod to Indianapolis over Christmas break.
I hope your arrangement works out as well.
J.
8:16 PM
Mike Norton said…
Always a calculated risk. In some ways it's a challenge to make the holidays special in other ways.
10:01 AM
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