Romulus, Black Friday, and Other News

Scenic. . . Romulus.

Happy Start-to-Christmas, Internet.

As you guys know, the Houghs travel downstate and celebrate Thanksgiving with Kris' side(s) of the family, and this year was no different.  Marcy came down with us again this year, and we ended up rolling into town around noon, stopping in briefly to see Kris' Uncle Jeff and Aunt Carol, before heading over to her Uncle Wayne's house to spend the rest of the holiday.  We ended up leaving around 8pm or so, which made this year's venture south kind of a whirlwind trip, but none of us really wanted to stay the night down there.

This movie is one of the greatest comedies ever made.

Anyway, the next day Kris and I (okay, just me) threw up the Christmas Trees (our new, fancy pre-lit one in the living room, and the girls' three-foot-tall, pre-lit tree in the basement), and, after the kids went to bed, Kris and I once again indulged in one of our personal favorite, Holiday traditions:  decorating the tree and having a couple Christmas cocktails while watching Some Like It Hot.

In summary, if you've stopped in to check out our Thanksgiving/Black Friday posts before, then this is practically identical to what we've done the last couple years.

. . . buuuuut just in case you're still curious:

Rolling into the Pearl of Michigan. . . .

Again, Kris wasn't down with stopping off at the Landing Strip for a quick steak-and-a-lap-dance.  Good ol' Queen Buzzkill. . . .

Margie's (at left) and Wayne's (right.)

Cousins.

Some people like to pride themselves with pairing certain wines with certain foods.  I personally like to think of myself as somewhat 'awesome' when it comes to pairing certain craft beers with certain events.

Watching what would eventually end up as another fine example of a Detroit Lions Thanksgiving ShitShow.

Hiding away in a makeshift fort between a couch and a wall.

Watching the Lions lose.

Women in the kitchen

I don't think I've ever once actually finished a game of Monopoly.

Sisters

Dance party

Just like last year, as it got dark out the girls all grew convinced that there were ghosts outside the house.  And, again like last year, they set off to capture photographic 'evidence' of aforementioned ghosts using their personal cameras.  Such as whatever the hell this is.

See?  Clearly proof of paranormal existence on the astral plane. 

Logging their 'facts' into a 'ghost book.'  Seriously.

Truly legit, empirically-based ghost facts.

The best part of marrying into Kris' family is all the venison sausage and jerky we score whenever we visit downstate.

The next afternoon, after a lazy morning of movie-watching and not participating in Black Friday craziness, I pulled out the girls' Christmas Tree and their tote of JV, not-quite-good-enough-for-the-living-room-Tree ornaments. . . .

The girls' tree - all 'prettied' up.  It takes a ridiculous amount of self-control on my part not to fix the holy hell out of this mess.

After the girls went to bed, it was time to kick off the start of the Official Christmas Season with my favorite Holiday cocktail, a Merry Irishman (Tullamore Dew Irish whisky, coffee liqueur, and Peppermint Schnapps.)

Our new tree (shown here) is programmed with nine LED lighting options, featuring white, multicolor, and seven additional alternating, blinking and fade-in/fade-out options.  My personal favorite is a gradual, alternating fade between white and multicolor, but, for the sake of decorating this evening, we kept it on plain ol', boring white.  Also known as Kris' favorite.

Daphne and Josephine, in over their heads as usual. . . .

We're strong Hallmark loyalists in this house, as you can see.

Watson assumes his usual pose for the evening.

Like I said before, this year Kris and I decided to end our annual ornament exchange tradition (seeing how we need to start slowing down our ever-expanding ornament collection) and begin a new, annual tradition of picking out one, single ornament for the tree.  This year's personalized Bronner's pickup represents our first Christmas in our new home.

Starting to fill up

The 2017 Hough Family Christmas Tree

- Brian