Thanks to Nintendo of America for sending along review products. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always. 

If you are a child of the ’80s, then you surely have more than a few Nintendo anecdotes. I still have a vivid memory of my older brother opening his first Nintendo console on Christmas morning, 1986. He let out a such a perfectly pitched and long-lasting scream that he sounded like a test of the Emergency Broadcast System!

And in the months (and years) to follow, I mostly had to watch him while he played because he didn’t want me to mess up his game. When he was feeling overly generous, he’d let me be Luigi on Mario Bros., but it didn’t happen all that often.

But 30 years later, I’ve finally got my own Nintendo (well, at least for 2 months until Christmas)!

This is the Nintendo 3DS XL and I am absolutely suggesting that parents buy this device right now so you can play with it before your kids unwrap it at Christmas.

Yeah, I said it. You get first dibs, this time!!!

I’m guessing I’m not the only kid from the ’80s who mostly watched other people playing video games, right? Here’s your change to get to play uninterrupted (even if it’s just in the carpool line, because #adulting) Or maybe you got to play video games all the time but now that’s more of a thing for your kids. The Nintendo 3DS XL is compact enough to easily fit in your purse or your work bag, which makes it so easy to sneak in a few minutes of game play here and there. You’ll have had plenty of fun by the time you need to wrap up the system and put it under the tree. Just think of it as getting everything warmed up for your kids! 🙂

This is also a great opportunity to go ahead and check out any games you have purchased to ensure that they are appropriate for your kids, and to get the system all set up with user names and parental controls.

I think the parental controls feature might be one of my favorite elements. If you are feeling unsure about unwrapping the device before your kids open it, I promise you that you really do want to set the parental controls up ahead of time. That way if a game is ever put into the device that is too mature for your kid (based on the game’s rating and the boundaries that you set) the game will not play and a note will pop up that a parent will have to override the system using their pin.

Kids love to swap games with each other and that means that your neighbor’s kid might be allowed to play games that your child isn’t, and vice versa. The parental control provide a way to keep your child safe and to avoid exposure to games that are too graphic.

Kirby is the game we received that I think my kids are going to enjoy quite a bit. As someone who never got to play video games too much, I appreciate getting tutorials at the beginning about the objective and how to use the controls. This will also help my girls who have been playing iPad games for years but who aren’t used to having controls to use. They are going to love it! 🙂 And I’m already making a list of other games I want to have lined up for the girls to try, a few of which will be under the tree, as well (I’m personally using this guide from Common Sense Media to help me pick).

I’m excited to be giving my own kids a Nintendo game console 30 years after I was introduced to one. And I’m even more excited that I got to play with it first! 😉