Microsoft started sprinkling gaming love on Xbox Live members early Thursday morning to celebrate the service's five-year anniversary. With events happening all day today, there are a bunch of reasons to skip dinner, ditch family, dump your significant other and get up on Xbox Live and play!

Fight Against Developers (and Seether)
As part of the day's festivities, there are several Game to Fame Events planned that let gamers show off their skills to their favorite game's developers. From Tony Hawk's Proving Ground, Halo 3, Project Gotham Racing 4, Madden 08, Forza MotorSport 2 and even blasting action with the Bomberman Live team.
For fans of the band Seether, the band will be playing Call of Duty 4 on Nov. 15 from 6-9pm PT / 9pm-Midnight ET. Just look for the band's gamertags in order to play (SeetherShaun for Shaun Morgan, SeetherDale for Dale Stewart and SeetherJohn for John Humphrey).

Free Stuff
If you're not already on Xbox Live, by playing any game on Xbox Live until midnight tonight is eligible to win one of several prizes in a simple Play & Win format. Five VIP grand prizes offer up a wireless controller, plug and charge kit, a Vision camera, universal media remote, wireless headset and more in a limited edition aluminum carrying case. Other prizes include Xbox 360 HD DVD player, a wireless steering wheel, a wireless headset, a 12-month Xbox Live Gold subscription of 1600 points to blow on anything. More details and pictures of the prize can be seen on the Play & Win Sweepstakes page.

Users who don't already own the Xbox Live Arcade game, Carcassonne, have until 12:01am PT on Nov. 16th to download the game for free (thanks to Ford's Sync sponsorship). Developed by Sierra Online, the strategy game is based on players creating borders, claiming ownership of areas and working to beat either AI players or online competition.

As part of the event, members can also download the free black and green-style "Xbox Live is 5IVE" theme. Other free themes given out to highlight each year of Xbox Live's existence include MechAssault (2002), Return to Castle Wolfenstein (2003), Halo 2 (2004), Ghost Recon 2 (2005) and Gears of War (2006). To find them, look on the Xbox Live blade and wait for the Xbox Live is 5VIE promotion to show up. Click on that to get the themes, the free game, a video commemorating the service's launch and list of things you didn't know about the service.

Finally, if you've been a member since the services launch in 200, you'll notice that your points wallet now contains 500 points. Yeah, that won't last long.

Xbox Live Originals
As part of the Xbox 360 Fall Update (due Dec. 4), Xbox Live will be able to buy complete versions of former Xbox games for 1200 points. Six games including popular hits Burnout 3: Takedown, Fable, Halo, Crimson Skies and Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex were listed along with the critically acclaimed Psychonauts and the party game, Fuzion Frenzy. While the current service doesn't say too much about the upcoming offerings, it will add a new way to get more content into the hands of gamers.