The Houghs: Christmas in Clare

Christmas chaos

This year, like so many others before it, saw our family head to Clare in order to celebrate the Holidays the day after Christmas. Traditionally, this is the day that my Dad's side of the family throws their big extended-family Christmas. Alas, the Waites weren't going to be able to make it this year, nor would the Whites or Rowleys, so it ended up being a strictly Hough affair this time around.

Yet with all the kids - and dogs - on hand, it was still far from a quiet affair.

Let's do this. . .

The Granddogs: Tucker, Bailey and Watson

Tucker isn't down with roughhousing the way Watson and Bailey are, so after running away from the two crazier dogs for awhile, he retreated into Nicole's lap.

Papa and the Cannonball

Abby

Kris and Cindy

(I get this look a lot.)

We enjoy celebrating the holidays in other peoples' houses, because we always get to eat food - like Cindy's - that's far better than the crap we eat at home. . .

Watson, taking a break from running around and barking at other dogs

Mid-scolding

Dad's annual time in the kitchen, preparing his guac dip. Surgical gloves required.

Tucker, most likely staring longingly at Chris.

Bailey, also taking a breather. After about ten minutes of wrestling with and chasing each other, the dogs all kind of forget about each other. Until someone new walks into the room, that is.

Digging out some retro treasure in the under-the-stairs game closet. . .

We didn't put batteries in these, but honestly I'm not entirely sure these things ever worked. . . I think they were Jeff's.

Damn straight I did.

Time for some Holiday jammage. . . and a mimosa.

The World's Ugliest Christmas Tree Ornament. Way to go, Chris.

These logic toys were a bit hit with Alayna. She'll zone out with anything that she can just sit quietly with and manipulate using her hands.

Not sure where these things came from - I missed the backstory.

We'll eat the holy hell out of some shrimp in this family. . .

After a few hours, Jeff, Annie and their kids rolled in and we were ready to start digging into Christmas presents. . .

Kris has really been wanting a soundbar in our living room in order to replace our current surround system, with all of its wires and speakers lying around.

Some more authentic Scarlet artwork

Kris seems really excited about. . . something.

Abby loves this Galactic Heroes line of Star Wars toys. She's amassed quite the collection over the last year.

An X-Wing. I never got an X-Wing growing up.

It was a vinyl-centric Christmas for Yours Truly this year. Which I was totally cool with.

New Inner and Outer sleeves. Some people might scoff at getting plastic for Christmas, but not this guy.

Kris is big into organizing clutter, so this was a well-received gift, indeed.

I've never seen a kid so excited to see someone else receive a pole saw. . .

Jeff was pretty excited to get this Pony Land toy. He'd been really wanting it for some time now.

Probably safe to say that Amazon supplied over 90% of the gifts that were opened today.

Alayna's been on a huge science kick lately. Probably has something to do with that Project Mc2 show she watches on Netflix. Along with her Spy Kit (that pink purse thing she had been begging us for), she'd been really wanting a microscope this year. Papa and Nana were nice enough to pick this up for her, which she was thrilled with.

This balance game - which personally gave me anxiety - kept the family pretty engaged for awhile.

Uncle Chris makes his move. . .

I guess this means they won the game - they put all their pieces on the thing without anything falling. Not entirely sure why Abby's standing there. . .

Playing some I Spy with Nana and her gigantor Snow Village collection.

Abby's new Christmas outfit, courtesy of Jill

Aunt Nicole - who actually is a scientist - helps Alayna set up and test out her new microscope. . .

Along with the microscope itself, Dad and Cindy got Alayna a set of 25 slides with stuff on them (like bee antennae, mold spores, tiny crap like that) that she could check out.

Dad gets a good look at. . . something very small.

Grub time at the Kids Table

Vinyl and mimosas. I wanted to try out a few of the different LPs Dad bought me this year. . .

A double-LP anthology of acoustic Jack White recordings from '98 to present, Hendrix's Axis Bold as Love, The Lost Notebook of Hank Williams (featuring unreleased songs of his performed by modern musicians), and a greatest hits compilation from the Beastie Boys. A solid sampling of awesomeness.

Blonde grandkids

While looking for extra cymbals for the girls' new drum set in the basement storage area (there were none, unfortunately), Dad and I stumbled this old Pearl snare drum that I had assumed was stolen - along with Colossus Maximus - years ago. Miraculously, it had been kept safely in the basement, and was thus spared falling into criminal hands. I saved up for this snare drum for over six months, buying it from some local music store in Mt. Pleasant back in 1997. I remember the day I finally made the last payment on it and was able to take it home, bashing away on it and driving my friends crazy as we drove around in Kimmel's minivan. Good times.