Christm- er, New Years Day - in Clare

Hey folks,

So today is officially the first day of 2026; in the past we've celebrated this by lying around the house in pajamas, recovering from the night before (which is always rough.) This year, however, my parents decided to try for a do-over for the extended Hough Family Christmas, seeing how our decades-long tradition of doing it the day after Christmas was torpedoed by a hellish ice storm that crippled all of central Michigan. We reluctantly agreed to drive up to Clare in order to meet up with all of our siblings and families, because - as stated before - we were all in pretty rough shape.

We ended up rolling in around 2:30pm, after Jeff and Chris' kids had finished tearing into their gifts from Dad and Cindy, and Alayna and Abby were finally able to open up theirs. Following that, everyone tore into the now-expected Qdoba spread, caught up with Bryan and Chelsey via Facetime (or whatever similar app was used, I wasn't paying attention), swapped gifts in the usual White Elephant gift exchange, and hung out with extended fam until evening.

The folks' charcuterie spread. . .

All in all, a quieter affair than normal (you can tell 'cause there's only like a third of the amount of pics I usually take), but it was a good time. Definitely did not feel like Christmas, but that's to be expected considering that crap was, like, a week or so ago. Hopefully next year things will return to form and we'll be able to celebrate the Holidays when it actually feels like the Holidays.

Here you go, folks - the smaller-than-usual, delayed, Extended Hough Family Christmas. 

Enjoy. . .

. . . featuring the infamous Meat Flower.

Alayna and Abby, opening up their gifts from the parents. . .

Alayna wanted one of those trendy Owala water bottles (that's the in-style brand right now, kinda like how Stanleys were a couple years ago), and some mug for Abby (didn't catch the story behind that.)

Alayna has been taking Watson's passing pretty hard, so she had asked for things that would remind her of him for Christmas this year, so the parents got her this frame and a couple other keepsakes along those lines. Abby had this random photo printer that connects to her phone on her list, which makes sense because she's about as obsessed with taking pics as I am.

That's a tiny printer.

This necklace features a locket that you can fill with your dead pet's ashes.

Cindy had margaritas out and ready to roll when we showed up, which paired nicely with the giant Mexican spread we grazed on all afternoon.

Dad and Cindy at the Kids' Table with some grandkids.

Jill, Chris and Kris (stuffing her damn face.)

Assorted Houghs finishing up Qdoba in the dining room.

Bryan phoned in from Nashville as folks were finishing up with food, seeing how him and Chelsey weren't able to fly up this year.

After we had the video call with Bryan up and running, we kicked off this year's White Elephant gift exchange. I handed out numbers for folks to draw out of a hat, and we selected gifts in that order. Kept the rules this year similar to what we used at the Sheahan's Christmas party, just scaled down a bit since we had fewer people (gifts could only be stolen twice instead of three times, etc.)

Bryan and Chelsey watch the opening of gifts from Tennessee.

There wasn't a whole lot of stealing this year - folks were either content or didn't really want any of the other gifts, who knows. I went next to last, so ended up with this Lego-ish flower set, which I gifted to my kids (who love that sort of thing.)

We got home around 6:30pm or so, and the girls set to work putting together their plastic bouquet while Kris and I resumed our movie-watching and lounging about the living room.

Another milkshake stout to close out the end of an unusual, but enjoyable, New Years Day.

- Brian