I’ve been fairly good this year, even more so in the last few weeks and months.  The new job has really helped with my happiness in life and things.

Whilst this is meant to be a fairly comprehensive list of the things I would like for Christmas, it is by no means of everything I expect to get for Christmas.  I expect I shall get everything on here in the next 12 months, be it through Christmas, birthdays or just random spendings of money.

**UPDATE** – Due to being badgered by Sue, this list is going live before being completed.  I’ll be adding things to it as we go :p

I think to make this as easy as possible on your elves, I’ll split it into sections.

Xbox 360 Games/Accessories

Star Wars : The Force Unleashed (If you can pick it up cheap – by cheap I mean £20 or less)
Rock Band 2 (Game only)
Guitar Hero World Tour (maybe)
Call of Duty : World at War
Microsoft Xbox Live Ponts (2100 or 4200 points cards)

PS3 Games/Accessories

Little Big Planet
At least one Dual Shock 3 PS3 pad

Books

Harry Hills Whopping Great Joke Book
Dilbert 2.0: 20 Years of Dilbert (Hardcover)
This Is the Part Where You Pretend to Add Value: A Dilbert Book
Cubes and Punishment: A Dilbert Book

Blu Ray

The Matrix Complete Collection
The Godfather Complete Collection
Batman (released 22/12)
Batman Returns (released 22/12)
Iron Man

DVD

blah

Random non-categorised stuff

Pic ‘n’ mix / Retro Sweet Jars / ect
Subscription to Loaded
Gift Vouchers — Amazon preferred,
Mathmos Lava Lamp
A Jigsaw table top foldy thing – so I can do Jigsaws and then fold them away mid way through
Lego
Something creative

As stated earlier, I don’t expect to get all of that stuff, it’s just the stuff I want or I wouldn’t mind getting.

More items to follow over the coming week or so as I see them.

I promise I won’t buy anything on the above list until after December 25th.

Yours Sincerely,

Matthew James Charlton

This will be my 27th Christmas.  I know as the years have gone on, Christmas has felt less and less like it used to do.  I mean – we can’t carry on coming down the stairs to piles of presents laid out by our parents now can we?  I do miss the safety gate at the top of the stairs though.  Dad going down to check if “Santa had been”.  Then the mad rush as the four of us tried to get to the bottom of the stairs as quickly as possible. 

I wouldn’t mind digging out those camcorder tapes actually, it’d be nice to watch my reaction as I got the various bits and pieces. 

I remember Christmas mornings filled withsetting up board games (sticking stickers on things, putting batteries in things, building things).  I remember (and I’ll admit to) playing Mall Madness with my sisters.  that was a cool game.  Dreamphonewas very, very gay though.  That was where you had a phone and a bunch of cards with pictures of boys who may or may not fancy you and you had to phone them.  When you found the one that did fancy you it said “You’re right! I like you”.  Errugh.. It’s disturbing on so many levels. 

You can’t get lego like you used to either.  I had a fantastic castle, a really good fire station too.  It’s not even as though it’s just me getting older – I’ve looked, the lego that you get today is shite in comparison.  I’ve found that with a lot of the things we grew up with.  Take the Millennium Falcon.  The original one released in the 80s was miles and miles ahead in build quality.  Back then you could get a proper toy. 

I need to get hold of an Argos catalogue and have a look through.  I used to love doing that as a kid.  Whether or not there will be anything in there that I want and/or need is another question. 

I nearly bought myself one of those ball bearing Rollercoasters, it’d been reduced from £80 to £52 at the Gadgetshop.  My sensible head told me I’d play with it once and it’d go back in the box, so out of the basket it went.  I hate it when that happens.  Doesn’t seem to happen when it comes to gaming though.  If its gaming related, and I want it, I get it.  Unless its one of those gaming rocker chair thingies.  As cool as they are, I haven’t been able to buy one yet.  I’d have nowhere to put it when I wasn’t using it. 

I used to love Christmas.  I don’t think I ever stopped loving it, it’s just SAD inhibiting all of the joy.  That and Sue working the majority of it in the past put a real downer on it for me.  I can’t even begin to express in words how glad I am to be working at Frog.  It’s fantastic and I really love it.  It’s amazing how much a difference to your quality of life work can make.  This year I can’t wait for December 1st. 

Christmas music is going in the car, Christmas ringtone, watching the Christmas classic films, putting the tree up, decorating the room.  Who knows – I might even send Christmas cards. 

Christmas does change as you grow up, it’s less about the presents you get and more about the presents you give.  Seeing the reactions and smiles on the faces of the people that you love as they open what you’ve bought them.  I guess moving away from home makes it a little harder to feel like I belong.  I lived in that house for 6 years but it feels like I never did, my bedroom was reallocated before I’d even left – but that’s what you get when you have a big family.  And I love them all dearly. 

When you move away from home to start your own family, Christmas becomes more of a personal thing, especially until you have kids.  If your other half ends up working you start to wonder what the point is.  I know I’ve played WoW on Christmas day before because I’ve been back home on my own!

Not this year, we’re going to have the best Christmas ever. 

Santa Claus is coming.

You can now view the countdown in either sleeps, days, hours, minutes, seconds, or the full monty of days hours mins and secs. 

Just so you all know, from the moment I post this blog, we’re looking at the following:

32 Days, 22 Hours 50 Minutes, 0 seconds

or

790 Hours

or

47450 Minutes

or

2847000 Seconds

or

33 Sleeps

Till Christmas.

I’m really looking forward to it this year, the tree is going up a week on Monday.  God knows where it’s going to go though.  Need to make some space in the front room. 

I’m going to make a start on my letter (blog post) to Santa soon, I decided it’d be a good way of letting Sue know what I want.  It should be an interesting list.  There’s not much I can think of that’ll be cheap on there :p

Anyone else looking forward to Christmas?