Outside the windows darkened by the clouds, a torrent of rain smashing against the thin glass as the night chill takes over. Here, in this house, there has and may never been the Christmas cheer and spirit that rings across the world, for there is no family left to find shelter and warmth with on the day of the year when most consider it time for family. There is only reflection and the sound of the world outside, quiet, eerie, as if for one day of the year the world stops. Even in the virtual landscape, for the days past they've seen so little activity. Fields are empty as adventurers return to their hearth, logging out for a day of presents and glee. In space, armadas worked to dock their largest ships back in safety. Everywhere you see people turn and focus on their family. 

Yet for those without, the Internet has done something very magical. Those who don't have a home to call home for Christmas can find one online. While the fields may be empty and the dungeons left to the evils of the world, adventurers still can sit together online and share in the spirit. In many games, tomorrow marks the day you can open your presents online, and many gamers choose to do so with their closest friends stuck in the same predicament as them. 

For the last 14 years, every holiday season, I've been cursed with the lack of any sort of tradition, no family means there isn't a situation in which you really have any place to go that is truly "family", yet, I have ever been so blessed to be able to reach out online and share in the holidays with others who have shared the same predicament. Some may say misery loves company, but I can easily rebut that, and say that when misery finds company, that misery turns into something else - joy and relief. 

Back in the dark ages of the world, if you had no one to be with on the holidays, you were left to your own devices. Yet now, with so many virtual worlds running through the holidays, and with a little bit of imagination, it's no longer a situation where you have to be truly alone. To some, you could call it pathetic, having friends online, but MMO gamers do know best - just because you're not there, within the physical realm, side by side, it doesn't dilute the intention or power of being able to talk virtually online. 

Before I had the Internet, the holidays were miserable, everyone that was in my world kept talking about Christmas trees and presents, something ever so foreign to me. Yet, with the PC, and an Internet connection, my life got so much better, because every Christmas, nay, every day of the year, if I couldn't meet with someone, if I couldn't hang out with someone, if my life was too hectic or not at the right place, I could still find comfort of others online. 

There are other Humans behind every keyboard. Every PC who talks to you online is an actual Human being (including the jerks who vote kick people for fun and hilarity), the same Human beings that you see walking around town, driving cars, building things, creating things, and doing things (all of the things). Between our global mail service, there is even instances of gamers online sharing the joy of the season with each other across state lines and even cross country. 

I'm someone who believes that holidays are constructs of society, that we honor these traditions because we, as humanity, decided to do so collectively, but because something wasn't decided by a group at large doesn't mean we each individually have to see it differently. It's not specifically about religion, that's foreign to celebration, because we can each respect our own beliefs alone - I'm speaking only about the idea that the holidays is this specific time of the year where we must all gather as a family and celebrate together, with presents and trees and lights, and everything. 

If you're reading this on Christmas Day, either home alone or with others making a racket so loud that you wish you could put your PC outside, if you had to leave a party because tensions were too high with the in-laws, or if everything is merry and you could never see the holidays better, just know that no matter what, these past 20 or so years, we as Humanity have gotten closer. Our world as a whole has gotten smaller, and no matter what, through virtual worlds and beyond, we've all collectively come together. 

We work together in goals online, either for work or for fun. Games like EVE Online show thousands of players engaging in epic space battles that only 100 years ago were works of fiction, fiction that hadn't even really begun exploring deep space. 50 years ago the technology to even display these movies was boiled down to paper towel tubes and some model paint. Yet now, we can live these out ourselves, working as part of epic space fleets trying to move cargo or claim space for your own side of the eternal conflict. 

In worlds like World of Warcraft, players band together to fight monsters, some of which are designed to be near impossible to defeat. Yet players continue to work together, to figure out individually and as a group the best methods to get past these obstacles. In games like Minecraft and Landmark, players work carefully to build great landscapes full of beautiful houses or recreations of fiction and non-fiction alike. 

One thing that I think 2014 has brought to us is the fact that we're all more alright working together online. We're all a bit more alright with not having to meet in real life so much. More of my friends work from home, to the benefit of their families. It's just a really beautiful concept to me and it's really just, wonderful to think how a wire connected to the wall or even a simple antenna gives us access to things we never thought possible. 

To all of you, I wish you all a happy holidays. 


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Last Updated: Mar 18, 2016

About The Author

Get in the bush with David "Xerin" Piner as he leverages his spectacular insanity to ask the serious questions such as is Master Yi and Illidan the same person? What's for dinner? What are ways to elevate your gaming experience? David's column, Respawn, is updated near daily with some of the coolest things you'll read online, while David tackles ways to improve the game experience across the board with various hype guides to cool games.

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