7 Ways To Have A 1337 Christmas

Ah, Kwahanusolstimas! That magical time of year when we Californians get out our plastic snowmen and decorative scarves that we don’t know how to wrap properly! This Friday I am gathering potluck-style with my super fly roleplaying group to celebrate, and tonight I set about wrapping up presents. For the first time this year I felt super Christmasy, and I wished to fully indulge in the holiday spirit. However, I didn’t have any of my mom’s raspberry jam bars or a copy of George C. Scott’s A Christmas Carol, so I had to make do with what I had. It worked out so well that I have condensed the key points down into a handy list that you should not only share with your friends and family, but that we should all work hard to make mainstream holiday traditions known the world over.

1. Make some bad ass hot cocoa

This is the most important part of buffing your Holiday Spirit stats. As we have seen in movies, all Christmases have hot cocoa, and movies never lie. However, don’t feel like you have to settle for cocoa of the warm, cozy Swiss Miss variety. Who wants warm and cozy when you can be a bad ass? That’s right, be totally awesome like me and drink your hot cocoa Aztec style. Chili and cinnamon, with the warm blood of a virgin sacrifice to taste (or, to avoid the police, just buy some). I’m sure Quetzalcoatl will put you on his “nice” list this year!

2. Watch Christmas episodes of your favorite shows

And I am not talking about that “very special episode” crap either, where estranged family members come home and we all grow in ways we never thought possible while Bing Crosby sings in the background. Isn’t goodwill towards men getting a little tiresome year after year? Mix it up a bit by indulging in your favorite sci-fi/fantasy/horror fandom, because chances are, they did at least one Christmas episode for the hell of it. Tonight I chose to watch Amends – Buffy with an ax in a tree lot, creepy dudes with their eyes stitched shut, and Angel going suicidal over the bloody sins of his past. Ho ho ho!

Other options could include the Farscape ep Terra Firma or How The Ghosts Stole Christmas from The X-Files.

3. Listen to Christmas music your grandmother would likely question

Right now I’m listening to A Very Scary Solstice from the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society, and it’s driving me mad with Christmas cheer! Have a listen to this sample of It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Fish-Men and I’m sure you will agree. The soundtrack for The Nightmare Before Christmas has been an old stand-by of mine to wrap presents by for years now. If you’d care for something a little more traditional, check out Trans-Siberian Orchestra. They perform my very favorite rendition of “Carol of the Bells”, which is so supremely epic that I could play it while ganking and get like 28,000 honorable kills before the song’s even over. Speaking of…

4. Celebrate the holiday in game

This can be done many ways. For us World of Warcraft players, Blizzard has made it super easy by giving us the Winter Veil event. Reindeer mounts! Goblin presents! Snowballs that can royally piss off your party members in a raid! (My kid brother likes to throw them at people when they’re trying to cast healing spells. He has lots of friends.) But I say you can go one step farther and put your maxed out alchemy or jewelcrafting skills to good use. Get some of this…

Wrap up one of these…

Send it to a guild officer, and there you go! Instant spot in every 25 man raid after that, and exalted rep with the North Pole!

Now, if you’re in an especially joy-to-the-world guild, they’ll make you wear one of these, which actually is so Christmasy that it loops back around from merry to worthy of a stocking full of coal. It is so cheerful, in fact, that upon seeing it for the first time you have to delete your character and kill yourself.

5. Buy your friends real presents comic books

Comic books are fantastic Christmas presents, and they work for everybody. Now, you may be thinking this is a niche market, but I disagree. Naturally, your geek friends are going to be totally stoked if you buy them an anthology of their favorite series. But you’d be surprised how well they can work out. Pick up a volume of Transmet for your savvy adult siblings, Stardust for the imaginative young teens, Asterix and Obelix for the kiddies, and Fables for your totally hip parents. Bam. Easiest shopping ever.

6. Buy yourself comic books

Christmas presents for yourself are always a nice warm fuzzy feeling, but you don’t want to break the bank. A comic book fits this criteria perfectly: cheap, fun, and a guaranteed 15 minutes of entertainment. That’s why I picked up the latest chapter of Messiah Complex today. Ok, so I would’ve done it anyway. But it’s got a reference to Jesus in the title, who, as we know, was born to Santa Claus on the same day – purely coincidentally, natch – that the druids were offering gifts to the trees. Onward!

7. Use that money from your Aunt Olivia to support a good cause

There are many worthy charities out there that could use your support this holiday season, the Pay Becky’s Rent Endowment being a particularly noble one. But in keeping with the geek motif, here’s a few ideas: Join the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Buy a box of pencils to support the writer’s strike. Get yourself some swag from Creative Commons or the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Help a kid in need through Child’s Play. Batman would.

Follow these steps, and I promise you, you will have the most totally sock-rocking [insert winter holiday] ever.