The Houghs: The Curse Returneth: Christmas Eve

'Twas the Night Before Christmas, and all through the House

Not a creature was stirring, because due to unforeseen circumstances none of the expected family members coming to the House for Christmas Eve could make it.

The Hough Family Holiday Curse was back.

I believe I've discussed this phenomenon with you guys before, but for shits and giggles I'll rehash this again. The Hough Family - for years - has suffered from a dreaded Thanksgiving Curse. Over the years, dating far back into the 1990s, bad luck and misfortune has befallen our extended family at every, single Thanksgiving. Sometimes a garbage disposal would back up in the middle of food preparation, sometimes drunken relatives would get into heated arguments, sometimes meals were ruined, etc.

A much smaller turkey this year.

Since moving to Florida, our satellite unit of Houghs also experienced some nasty Thanksgivings (Clintsgivings, as we call them in Florida) of our very own. 2011 and 2012 were fine examples.

Anyway, considering our family's bad luck with Turkey Day, we haven't really gone all-out celebrating it anymore, and for the last few years Kris and I have gone downstate to celebrate the Holiday. As such, I guess the Curse had no way of extracting its toll on the Houghs, and so this year, as it would seem, it decided to set its sights on Christmas instead.

And so, as Christmas Eve dawned on the Hough Household, we were immediately beset by bad news. Like previous years, we had decided to host Kris' family over at our house for Christmas with their side of the family, and had expected Kris' mom, Marcy, and her husband, Scott, along with Crystal and her three kids, her mom, Mickey, and Mickey's boyfriend (I forget his name.)

Unfortunately, as the Curse would have it, Crystal was having car trouble and couldn't make it down. On top of that, Mickey couldn't suddenly couldn't get the time off of work, and Scott was suffering complications from his MS treatment. . . meaning the only guest we'd be hosting for Christmas Eve was Marcy.

Happy Holidays: ENGAGE.

I once again decided to prepare a turkey for Christmas Eve, and fell back on my trusted Michigander Turkey recipe from AllRecipes.com.

All prepped and ready for firing.

When I put the turkey in to the oven, the bottom of the flimsy, aluminum pan I foolishly chose to house this year's bird snagged on the rack of the oven. At first, I didn't think anything of it, but eventually the house began to fill with smoke. . .

The turkey juices were dripping on the bottom of the stove and burning, so we had no choice but to remove the turkey and transfer it to a roasting pan (which we should've used from the very beginning) half-way through the 3 1/2 hour roasting process. (Kris' fancy hair-do courtesy of Abby.)

Needless to say, the Curse had thoroughly screwed over this year's turkey - I was convinced it had been ruined with the oven filling up with smoke.

A snack table meant for a dozen, now feeding five.

A hold-over beer from last Christmas, finally gracing the Holiday season.

Showing off their newly-acquired piano skills for Grandma Jordan.

Christmas Cookie decorating with Grandma.

A snowy Christmas Eve (at least the Curse didn't melt all the snow to deprive us of a White Christmas.)

An hour or so later, the turkey - or what's left of it - is finished. The white meat was a bit dry, but the dark meat was fine. Could've been a hell of a lot worse, I guess.

The last two years we've hosted at our house, during my turkey separating post-roasting, I've always given the dog scraps. This ended up being incredibly stupid on my part, because each time we'd return from mom's house on Christmas Day, we'd return home to find diarrhea droppings all over the living room floor. We weren't about to make the same mistake a third year in a row, so Watson was left to beg at my feet in the kitchen without getting a single scrap of turkey. Nobody felt sorry for him.

Dinner served.

Festive jammitude.

Watching some Christmas movies.

Following dinner, playing Taboo with Grandma.

Giving Grandma Jordan her Christmas presents

After Marcy left for Clare, we made the kids take showers - God knows we weren't going to have a lot of time to do so on Christmas Day.

Time for the obligatory Christmas Eve gift opening. . .

New fleece robes, to replace the Hello Kitty ones we got them a few years ago.

Abby the Unicorn

Annual Christmas Eve family-in-front-of-the-Christmas-Tree Picture. You're welcome.

Warming up by the fire in the Study

Another tradition (sure are a hell of a lot of 'em on Christmas Eve): setting out milk and cookies for Santa, an apple for Rudolph ('cause it's red, I guess), and carrots for all the other, less-important reindeer. When the girls met Santa this year, he told them that his reindeer preferred baby carrots over real ones, and that he liked Kris' chocolate chip cookies the best. Kris doesn't even bake chocolate chip cookies, so you can imagine how thrilled she was that she had to bake a batch of these just so the girls could set them out for 'Santa.'

And yet another tradition: reading The Night Before Christmas. This has gotten a lot easier over the last few years because the girls take turns reading pages with me.

The kids both went to bed around 8pm this year, but obviously stayed up tossing and turning for a couple hours before finally falling asleep. While they lie awake in their beds, unable to sleep, Kris and I hauled all the presents upstairs and set them out under the tree (with the exception of the ones designated to be from 'Santa,' as we didn't set those out until we were absolutely sure the girls were asleep.) I also used this time to take a few last minute shots from around the house.

One more Merry Irishman for the Season.

And, of course, an honorary viewing of the greatest of all Christmas movies, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.

'Santa' ate his cookies, and the 'reindeer' took care of the carrots. In no way, shape or form did the girls' parents crumble up the food left for Santa and toss it all into the garbage.