One of the most memorable holidays of my life was Christmas 1994.  That was the day my dad unwrapped our family’s first desktop computer.  For years, my father had stuck with his Brother word processor, a computerized typing machine that he used to lug around between home and the office.  He had never needed to bring home one of those boxy Apple IIs.  By 1994, though, something new was revolutionizing the world of computing:  The Internet.

I’m sure that I’ll never forget until the day I die the sound of that 9600 baud modem connection to the Prodigy network on our little Compaq Presario PC.  A kid really shouldn’t have been turned loose online in those wild west days of the Internet, but I couldn’t be stopped.  Downloading photos from the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition and yakking it up in chat rooms about Megadeth was all I wanted to do.

That seems like a long time ago, but I know that this Christmas some kid is getting a Dell OptiPlex SX280 with 17-inch monitor for his first computer.  Once that LAN is up and running, and he boots up Windows for the first time, he’s going to feel just as excited as I did 15 years ago to the day.

That excitement is what Christmas is all about; for a kid, anyway.  What was your most memorable Christmas?