What Santa taught me about Christmas and gaming

When I was a young child, my mom brought me to see Santa at the local mall. I was a little scared, but ultimately the thrill of seeing the man himself, the legend… it was a golden opportunity.

The mall was packed with children, most of them mouth-breathing wastes of genetic material. But not me. No, I was special because unlike all these brats with selfish desires, I just wanted to ask the man in red one question. As an unexpectedly tall elf ushered me onto Santa’s lap, I swallowed the nervous lump in my throat and stammered out my query.

“S-s-s-santa,” I began, “how come y-you only de-de-deliver presents to Christian boys and girls?”

The old man was taken aback, but a wisdom far beyond mortal years sparkled in his eyes. He stroked his beard thoughtfully, then struck me with a reply I’ll never forget.

“WiNGSPAN,” he said, “that’s not true at all. You see, every Christmas, I give the greatest gift of all to every child on Earth. I give them an endless stream of inexperienced newbs to destroy on the Internet.”

His answer stirred something in my heart I couldn’t explain. It was a mix of childlike wonder, boundless joy, and possibly eroticism. But mostly joy. With a wink and a nod and a touch of his cap, he set me off to the photo stand to pick up the picture his elves had taken of us. But when my mom and I looked at the Polaroid, Santa wasn’t in it!

And that’s when I discovered Santa was a vampire, an ageless spirit nourished by the blood of the innocent. It explained all his powers, including the ability to fly, and the ability to induce erotic infatuation in the minds of his victims. It all made so much sense.

What’s the point of this story? Well, just because Santa was an incomprehensible demonic force bent on culling humans as livestock doesn’t mean he was wrong. That day he taught me the true meaning of Christmas, destroying noobs in online multiplayer videogames.

After all, what other time of year can you jump into a game of Assassin’s Creed, Call of Duty, Battlefield 3, or any other game and find it populated almost entirely of players who just got the game that fucking day? Unless there’s some other holiday called Orgasmas, I doubt you’re going to step into a better situation.

So, when you’re bummed about not getting that special game you wanted this year, do yourself a favor. Remember the wise words vampire Santa shared with me on that fateful morning. Go boot up Mortal Kombat or Uncharted 3 or whatever strikes your fancy, and bathe in the virtual blood of a thousand whining neophytes. Climb the leaderboards on the corpses of the uninformed, the uninitiated, the unprepared. Come to the understanding that Christmas exists, first and foremost, for beings like you to gorge themselves in points measured in the suffering of noobs everywhere.

And when you’ve satiated your bloodlust and the digital world has been cleansed of those beneath you, take a moment to thank Elder Lord Klaus for his wisdom, his generosity, and his blessing of the hunt. So be his dark will.