My fondest memories of Christmas are from childhood when we’d spend Christmas eve and day at my grandparents house in Pasadena with my aunts and uncles and thei

My fondest memories of Christmas are from childhood when we’d spend Christmas eve and day at my grandparents house in Pasadena with my aunts and uncles and their families. The kids usually shared a few rooms and in the morning our stockings would be hung on the doorknobs so we could entertain ourselves silly putty, highlights magazines, and slinkies while the adults slept in. However, the Christmas gift I’ll never forget was my first DVD player. It was a discounted Proscan model, but still cost a bundle back when VHS was the dominant format. While fiddling with the menu for The Matrix, I stumbled upon the commentary track which I had no understanding of. I finally pieced together that I was listening to the directors talk about the movie as they watched it, as if we were in the same room together. This kinda blew my mind and set me down a path at a young age of appreciation for movies as an art form and dialogue between artist and viewer rather than just passive entertainment.