User:Tim from Leeds/Winter-een-mas

Wintereenmas is a string of Holidays started in the Ctrl+Alt+Del comic strip by Tim Buckley. It covers seven days of gaming, each featuring a specific genre and having an emblematic "spirit" over it. The holiday lasts from January 25th to 31st each year.


 * January 25th: Adventure games, symbolized by a man dressed as Indiana Jones.


 * January 26th: First Person Shooter (FPS) games, with a 21 year-old sleep deprived gamer as its symbol.


 * January 27th: Fighting games, represented by a martial artist with too many blows to the head


 * January 28th: Real-time Strategy (RTS) games, whose emblem is a large bearded man with a pocket protector inside another pocket protector.


 * January 29th: Racing games, shown as a racer with old-fashioned racing helmet and racing goggles holding a detached steering wheel.


 * January 30th: Role Playing Games (RPGs), depicted as an elf-like woman holding floating dice above her left hand.


 * January 31st: Sports games, with a round, middle-aged man wearing a #10 jersey and holding a beer bottle in each hand as its emblem.

Wintereenmas has its own website that is fairly empty during most of the year. It has information and forums around the holiday. Many gamers recognize it and participate, and organized events are becoming more common each year, especially on college campuses where gaming groups may hold formal events to celebrate gaming.

Some gaming stores, most notably EB Games, recognize the holiday(s) and offer sales during that week.

Gaming groups, especially on campuses, have been hosting events outside of cyberspace. These events have been recorded in Minneapolis and Indiana. The official list of events is only kept online for the months around Winter-een-mas, so a complete list is not possible at this time. The holiday is widely reported to be celebrated by individuals and small groups, much like any other holiday, without a lot of fanfare.