When it comes to unwrapping holiday gifts there is nothing more pulse-pounding than tearing away the first wad of wrapping paper from a game-shaped box.  Are you about to get the game you wanted most of all or will you have to put on a weak smile and thank your ill-informed grandmother for complete junk?  The gang at NeoGAF are discussing crappy holiday gaming gifts of years gone by.  Behold this tale of woe from LostFragment:

A few days before Christmas one year (I must've been about 7 or 8), I was alone in the house for a bit so I decided to try and peel back a corner on some of the presents to see if I could find out what they were. I took a particular interest in one of them because it was in the shape of an NES box. I peeled one of the corners back to reveal the Nintendo Seal of Approval. Excited, since we were ultra poor and I almost never got any new games or anything, I retaped the corner so that my mom wouldn't notice and spent the next few days wondering what game it was.

Then on Christmas morning, after opening up all my other presents, it was time to see what game I got. After taking my time unwrapping, I laid my eyes on...a fucking NES cleaning kit. I was not happy.

I've been fortunate in that while growing up my gaming gifts were always either something I'd asked for or something unknown that turned out to be good anyways.  I credit my extensive holiday wish lists for that, as I'd start typing up my most wanted games on the old Commodore 64 around the beginning of November.  Each item on the list included the game title, publisher, system, and basic storyline.  Unfortunately, I was using Nintendo Power as my guide for release dates, meaning that I sent my parents on wild goose chases in search of games that weren't yet released all too often.  Sorry about that, Mom and Dad.