'Twas the Night Before Christmas

Season's Greetings, folks.

So here we are at long last - the pinnacle of the Holiday Season. Technically tomorrow morning is the big event, but since it's basically just two hours of gift-opening followed by a short visit to Mom's, we've always looked at Christmas Eve as a bigger deal. Like I've said before, with our girls being older now, the enjoyment of watching kids tear into a mountain of presents has been replaced with teens patiently opening up a handful of far more expensive gifts in a fraction of the time, then disappearing to their rooms to FaceTime with friends and compare their presents. 

I miss buying, wrapping, and giving out toys so damn much.

As I've stated before, we've been making this Christmas Eve of ours a Laginess extended family event for the last nine or ten years, hosting an informal drop-in and stay however long you want sort of a deal for whomever is around. I cook up a giant turkey, we offer up a table full of sides, desserts and various Holiday booze, and have crafts and activities (like gingerbread house making) for folks. Some years we have a house full of folks, other years it's just one or two relatives, and each year more or less plays out the same.

A morning coffee with Kris and Samson before I had to prep the turkey. . .

This year, neither Kris nor myself were really feeling the whole 'hosting' thing, so we didn't really invite anyone over, aside from Kris' niece, Victoria, who lives in Midland now. This was fine for us, since the turkey that we had - a 12 pound Butterball I had won the month before in a trivia challenge at work - was smaller and wouldn't have been able to feed a dozen or so relatives while still having enough to make the couple leftover meals that I usually make the week after Christmas (Southwestern Turkey Soup, etc.)

As a result, it was a lot more chill this year. I took far fewer pictures than I usually do (hence this being a much shorter post than in previous years), we had more down time in which to focus on other things, and we even managed to squeeze in a traditional church service in the evening after everyone had left.

All in all, it was another solid Christmas Eve for the Houghs, as you can ascertain from the following pictures.

Enjoy. . .

Prepping the turkey with my usual 'Michigander Home style Turkey' recipe. . .

It's on Allrecipes.com, in case you're curious - it's always a hit. I dry-brine the turkey for a few days before doing the actual pre-roasting prep work, which makes the meat super tender and moist.

After a half an hour of prep-work, I threw the turkey in the oven (tented in foil) for three hours. I didn't flip the turkey upside down his year, nor did I remove the foil for the last half hour of roasting in order to brown the skin - the skin was already pulled taught from the dry-brining this year, and I didn't want to risk it splitting.

Our food table, pre-food set up (I was just testing the SLR's settings.)

From left to right: Alayna's, Sebastian's, and Abby's gingerbread houses from the day before.

Some of the cookies and sweets that were given to us from various friends and co-workers over the last week or two.

Some gingerbread mulled wine, all warmed up and ready for mugs.

A classic Holiday offering that folks always forget about, I frickin' love it.

In the late morning, as food was being prepped and folks began getting around for the day, Kris gave the girls a small, combo gift to open. . .

A custom, 520-piece puzzle of our two dogs, hanging out in the Study. Kris figured this would be a fun activity for us to do during the downtime throughout the day.

Opening up some gift cards from Grandma Marcy.

We decided to start the puzzle in the basement shortly after lunch, and, seeing how it was after noon and everything, I deemed it time to crack open one of my all-time favorite Holiday beers.

Hard at work.

Kris and Abby popped in from time to time to help out, but most of this undertaking was tackled by the Cannonball and I.

Around 3pm, I took the turkey out of the oven and prepared to carve it up into white, dark, and leftover meat (for the soup I want to make next week.)

Had this spinning while I was taking care of my turkey duties - hard rock Christmas staple.

The finished product (which Alayna hammered out all by herself in the basement.) The books and cabinets (and dogs) were pretty easy, but the chairs were a pain in the ass.

With the turkey done and the food being set out for guests, we had some more down time, so I had a beer and put on my second favorite Christmas movie (which I prefer to stream off YouTube, which has the full version of the video plus all the commercial breaks with the original 1987 commercials included.)

Rock and roll.

About an hour later, Victoria, her boyfriend Stephen, and their respective kids (Julian and Sophia) showed up to hang out for a bit. Kris bought each kid a present so they'd have something to open up while they were over.

Sophia showing Vic her new stuffed animal (that of course talks.)

Since the Johnsons are basically family, we invited them over for a few drinks and snacks. They were in the same boat as us, just killing time before they were heading out to an evening church service (they go to Trinity Lutheran, across town.)

Ella and Abby

Kris got a super awesome deal with our local hockey team, the Saginaw Spirit, during Black Friday. Six tickets for the price of two, something like that. She decided to make it a combo gift so each girl got three tickets, which allows them to go together once, and once each with a boyfriend or something, or any combination thereof, depending on how they want to do it. Both girls are super into hockey, so this was a no-brainer. 

Back upstairs, grazing at the snack table and having some drinks while we killed time before the church services.

Abby keeps the kids from wandering into the Study, where the kids would probably break a bunch of shit (you know, 'cause they're toddlers and toddlers are wild animals.)

Erik, Courtney and Kris.

These two cannot hang out together without regressing to a six-year-old mindset.

The current state of Alayna's walls. She's got a knack for decor, I'll give her that much.

After Vic and her fam took off, and the Johnsons set off for their own church service, it was time for us to load up and drive downtown for the traditional, 7pm service (Abby and Kris both wanted to go to this one this year, and Alayna and I were indifferent as always.)

The candlelight service at First United Methodist. Unlike the half-hour, carol-based services we've gone to in previous years, this was a full, hour-long service, just with more music and no sermon (which I was more than okay with.)

It was packed to the gills inside the sanctuary, so we had to take seats upstairs in the balcony (which we've only done on a handful of occasions in the last decade.)

After the service, I nabbed a pic of Kris and the girls on our way out of the church.

Back home, we had a few more things to knock off the ol' Christmas Eve Check List before turning in for the night. . .

Put this bad boy on as we started off into our end-of-the-day routine. I discovered it a couple years ago, it's phenomenal.

Opening up the traditional Christmas Eve presents (pajamas as always, just like every other family in the United States.)

Kris had these pants custom made on Etsy, featuring Watson's face and his favorite Bark Box toy, St. Pickelous (a pickle with a Santa hat on it, Watson was obsessed with it.)

Kris also threw in matching, black shirts for everyone - just something basic as to not distract from the pants.

I was already wearing a black shirt throughout the day, so we took one with my old first. . . but Kris didn't like it so she forced me to change into a second black shirt (the one she got me when she bought hers and the girls' shirts.) Happy wife, happy life.

The Houghs' annual Christmas Eve pic.

We forced the girls to wind-down and sequester themselves to their bedrooms at 9:30pm so that Kris and I could bring up and set out all the gifts and stockings before turning in ourselves. As tradition dictates, we put on my all-time favorite Christmas movie, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, while we set to work.

Wouldn't be Christmas Eve without a Merry Irishman. . .

The gifts all set out under the tree. Didn't take as long this year because, like I explained earlier, there are far fewer gifts now that each of the girls' presents have, like, quadrupled in price (at the very least.)

This feeling perfectly sums up the vibe of Christmas Eve, once everything is finished for the coming morning.

The stage is set for Christmas Morning. Stay tuned for tomorrow's installment, gang. . .

- Brian

The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. CXLVII

Two days left, America - think we got time for one more Holiday album review for this season. . . 

Album Title:  Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Album Artist:  The Caroleers

Ah, another children's album. This one caught my eye 'cause the damn thing was still sealed in shrink when I picked it up (which happens from time to time - apparently the $2.98 hype sticker wasn't enough to sell it back in the day.)

The Caroleers have appeared on a couple different albums that I've reviewed in the past, and from what I can gather they were some kinda vocalist group that was created by a studio for the sole purpose of recording in-house records. They're usually garbage, but they seem more at home on a kids' album, for sure. This album plays out like a variety show, it's by no means a straight up collection of children's songs. There's like little skits and spoken word scattered throughout the album, which, for a normal listen, would be jarring as all hell, but we have to remember that this is a children's album and, uh. . . . I guess little kids like that sorta thing? Who knows, kids are dumb.

The song selection on this album is super weird, though. Most of these songs are not familiar ones at all - aside from 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town,' these are all originals. It's like some studio executive balked at the suggestion that they just record an album of the Big Kids' Songs ('Up on the Rooftop,' 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,' etc.) and said, "F*** that, fellas - I got this. Hold my beer." Then proceeded to hire in-house songwriters to craft their own, brand new children's Christmas songs. 

You know, like a crazy person would do.

This, as you know, is a cardinal sin - probably the most egregious of sins one can make on a Christmas album, and one that I've only seen circumvented on a handful of occasions with decent, original Christmas songs. But let's put that on the back-burner for the time being and play devil's advocate for a second: maybe this album's sound is strong enough to defend it's bizarre track list?

Well, readers, this album sounds like it was produced by Hanna Barbara or something back in the day, the music is straight-up 1960s Children's TV music - not the '40s orchestral insanity of, say, the Loony Tunes or whatever, but that cashing-in-on-the-swing-of-the-60s thing. It's soooo campy that you can imagine if this thing was the soundtrack to an animated special, the characters would all have bobs and go-go dresses. Aside from cartoons, you also heard similar background music in family programming like The Brady Bunch or Partridge Family - that vanilla, safe-for-all-audiences, period-accurate backing music. The production itself isn't half-bad, this sounds like it was recorded with some semblance of a budget, so the idea that they had the opportunity to record classics that kids would easily recognize (and reside in the public domain) is mind-boggling.

I mean, there's a song on here called '10,000 Santa Clauses' on this frickin' album. Not just the one. Not two or three. Ten thousand of 'em. You can't make this shit up.

Again, these songs are kids' songs, so they're all upbeat and jovial, and the singing is far too animated and expressive for adult listening. Every syllable isn't just sung, it's acted: you see this a lot in life-action children's television, like when people sing on Sesame Street or Barney or whatever. With all the ridiculous facial expressions and over-exaggerating of body movement. Pair that with previously discussed campy, 60s music, and you have an album that plays out like a fever dream that one can only escape from with a bullet to the skull.

So fine, I get it, I'm not the target audience for an album like this, but still - I've ranked some stellar, children's Holiday albums in the past (the soundtrack to classics like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, offerings from heavyweights like The Muppets, Disney's main characters, etc.), so it's not like I'm going to just torpedo this post's installment merely because it's not 'my cup of tea.' Give me some credit here, folks. No, this album isn't bad because it's a children's album, it's bad because it suffers from a crappy track selection and poor execution in the delivery.

'Who's That Up on the Roof,' for example, sounds like a child contemplating snatching his dad's shotgun from the garage when he hears some stranger walking around on his roof. There's a level of indignation in this singer's voice that makes one's skin crawl,  even more so 'cause it's a little-ass kid singing. Why is this kid so pissed there's a dude up on his roof? You'd think with it being Christmas Eve and everything this kid would put two-and-two together and realize it's Santa Claus before he murders him (via Stand Your Ground laws.)

This album would have been a solid '5' or even '6' if they had chosen more familiar songs, because the production isn't god-awful (The Caroleers, who I've reviewed before, seem to find their footing within the context of overly-animated, children's music.) The backing music is pretty campy, sure, but this was recorded in the 60s and, well, that's just what was popular back then. I can even excuse the spoken word bits and skits because, as we've said multiple times before, this is a children's album and they wanted to weave some storytelling in there. That's all fine and good. I guess.

What's not fine and good is the hubris of the producers who decided to forego all decency and insist on penning some of the most cringe-inducing, lyrically asinine Christmas songs I've heard all season.  We as adults have a right to protect children in this society, and this album is the sort of thing that warrants a phone call to CPS.

VERDICT:  3/10 - Seriously?  (Not the worst children's Holiday album I've heard - by a long shot - but I just can't wrap my head around the decision to include soooo many original songs on a children's album. Kids like singing along to songs they know by heart, WHY wouldn't they include some familiar hits on this album?)

- SHELVED -

- Brian