With unwrapped gifts put away and decorations pulled down, boxed, and forgotten, we'd be inclined to think that the recent holiday and all of its accompanying festivities were just a manic dream were it not for the still gaping hole in our wallets. And while many of you shared your annual Consumermas haul with us last week, we thought it would be fun to milk the holidays a bit more by invading the privacy of many of those involved in fulfilling our gaming needs and ask just what they found in their stockings.
Specifically, we asked a number of game developers and publishers just one simple question: "What was your favorite gift you unwrapped this holiday season?" What we found, as it turns out, was many of their loved ones are apparently much more creative than ours.
Alex St. John, Wild Tangent
"I got some funny ones. Our COO had one of our artists make a clay bobblehead statue of me. Friends know I'm a "Global Warming Denier" so they got me an Al Gore 2008 Bumper Sticker for my Hummer and a Global Warming coffee mug with a map of the world on it that sinks into the ocean when you pour a hot drink in it.
I think I'll have the most fun with my Mace Windu Light Saber from Master Replicas however." 
Jools Watsham, Renegade Kid
"A totally rad Fuzion Asphalt Scooter... and an Xbox 360, finally!"
Gregg Hargrove, Renegade Kid
"The gift that made me giggle like a girl... a little stuffed monkey in a mask and cape. You stick your fingers in little pockets on its hands and pull back on its feet (it's got elastic wrists) and slingshot it across the room and it makes authentic "monkey shrieking" noises as it flies. Well, I thought it was totally cool. Hours of fun!"
Mike Wilson, Gamecock
"A full on authentic mariachi suit!"
Tim Hesse, Gamecock
"A tasty bottle of Bookers Bourbon."
Phoenix Spaulding, NIS America
"Probably the single coolest thing I unwrapped was the complete DVD collection of Brisco County, Jr. I actually found out about Bruce Campbell through this rather than the Evil Dead series, as most other people did. I haven't watched it yet, and I have a feeling nostalgia is playing tricks on me, but man I LOVED that show. And when it was on, there were rumors of an X-Men movie being in production, which I was way into at the time. And I always thought Brisco's black sidekick would've made a PERFECT live-action Bishop. And that's that!"
Chris Stockman, Blazing Lizard
"A 9 week old Japanese Chin puppy."
Josh Williams, GarageGames
"Honestly, my favorite gift this holiday was from our team here at GarageGames. Just before the holidays, I got to unwrap a fully functioning private beta for InstantAction at instantaction.com. The teams working on the games and the site crunched to get it all done for the holidays and it was the best present I could imagine. On the downside, part of the result of the crunch was that we got a little sloppy and one of the unannounced games we are working on got leaked on the net, but it was still awesome to see the team pull together and get InstantAction up in time to let people play a little over the holidays.
Other than that... my family always comes through with presents to feed my gaming addiction, so I got to unwrap a smorgasbord of gaming gifts including PSP games and movies, Geometry Wars Galaxies for the DS, a couple classic controllers for my Wii and some Wii party games, Drake's Fortune on the PS3, some 360 games I'm behind on playing, like Mass Effect, along with Crysis, the Witcher on PC. Also, my mom made me her famous peanut butter chocolate cookies this year, and though they fatten me up, they're pretty much the most delicious things ever.
They're hard to make so she usually only does one or two batches and gives them to someone. As such, they've spawned more than one jealous family feud-- this year I must've done something right, because I got 'em! Besides eating the delicious treats, I got to rub the fact that I'm apparently my mom's favorite this year in everyone else's face, which of course made each one even more tasty and satisfying."
Alex Seropian, Wideload Games
"Bacon of the Month"
Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, Microsoft
"The best thing I got was to spend time with my wife. She travels over 150,000 miles a year for her job, and just being able to spend two consecutive weeks with her was great. Of course by the end of the third day I think I was driving her crazy...but we had a great time."
