Christmas

Happy Holidays, Internet!!!

Helping the dogs open their stockings. . .

This year's Christmas was downright brutal.  Not in a drama-filled or Holiday disaster sort of way, but our family ran on fumes the entirety of the day, and barely got through it.  I had to get up at 3am to use the restroom, and while returning to bed Alayna began calling out for me from her room.  I went in to see what she wanted and she was wide awake, and told me that she had been since 1am.  Knowing that she was up and miserable, I was consequently unable to fall back asleep, and tossed and turned until 6am, when both girls charged out of their rooms for presents.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, folks:  Christmas itself is nowhere near as cool as Christmas Eve.  It's two or three hours of opening gifts, on little sleep, followed by a loooooong day of just being exhausted.  Seriously.  After the presents are all opened and the dust settles, it's just like any other frickin' day of the year, except you're dead tired and just wanna die.  

I'll take Christmas Eve over that nonsense any day of the week.

Settling in to the living room, we grabbed some coffee, got our cameras ready, and set forth on the great gauntlet of gift-opening.

Here we go again. . .

Samson gets another squeak toy to tear up.

A plush 'muttscato' (get it?) squeak toy.  Both dogs fought over it throughout the rest of the day, they're not big fans of sharing.

The girls start going through their stockings from 'Santa'. . . 

We don't stock these things full of candy and toys like we used to - they've graduated on to make-up products and crap like that.

Some jade/rose granite rollers or something from Marshall's.  I guess women use it on their face. . .?

Curious dogs.

Body sprays and shades.

Kris begins working through her stocking.  Not from Santa.

(A shirt from Parks and Rec.)

Santa knows I like booze in my stocking.  Good on 'em.

Abby insists her foot's sprained, but she walks around in no pain whatsoever.

Kris bought me a shirt (from the show, Community), but it was a Large instead of my usual Medium, soooo it's gonna be a pajama shirt.

A new phone case for her phone (based on some random-ass anime character from a show she watches.)

Girls got a bunch of clothes this year - shirts, pants, skirts, shoes, etc.  I can get behind this a hell of a lot more than, say, toys.

The backside of a tapestry for Alayna's room. . .

So this year I was able to finally score one of the two Muppets ornaments from Hallmark that's missing from my collection - I had, until about a week ago, owned every, single ornament in the series except for 2010's Ode to Joy (Beaker) and 2008's Waldorf and Statler.  Then, miraculously, some idiot listed the Beaker one on Amazon for $20, and while doing my daily check-in with my Amazon lists, I saw the pricing error and pounced on it.  This was insanely good news because usually these particular ornaments costs around $100-$120.  After this Christmas miracle, I announced my triumph to my family, adding that I now was only missing the 2008 installment of the series.  Abby took it upon herself to make me one out of construction paper and cardboard, based on a picture she found online. . .

So this is definitely going on our tree in the Muppet section. . .

Pretty impressive for a 6th grader, considering she just copied this picture off Amazon. . .

The girls tear into the presents they bought for each other. . .

Alayna does not like hugs.

Are you seeing a pattern in Alayna's gifts this year?

Samson sat like this next to Kris for about an hour.  Clearly not sure what to do with himself.

(I think it's a purse.  She had it on her Amazon list, don't ask me.)

Kris and I picked out some orchestra ornaments for the girls - a violin for Alayna, a cello for Abby - from Bronner's while we were in Frankenmuth celebrating our 15th wedding anniversary.

Mid-toss.

Really f***ing tired of watching the girls open presents.

One of Abby's bigger gifts this year was a drawing table for the basement, seeing how she's been really into drawing the last few months.

More clothes. . . .

Abby got a new phone this year, too (the same one Kris just bought herself, actually). . . though this wasn't really a Christmas gift, but more of a reward for nailing straight A's in school the first semester.  Unfortunately, Abby wasn't surprised at all by the ringing phone gimmick, since we had pulled the exact same trick with her sister two year prior, so we once again didn't get the reaction on video that we wanted.  You know, the one Alayna had on the video Kris promptly deleted on accident.

Oh well, at least now this kid won't be so damn hard to get in touch with. . .

A new earring stand for her room.

Alayna's big gift this year was her own debit card and checking account through our local credit union, along with a lump sum deposited into her account by us (seeing how she's to the age now where she's asking for money.)

They seriously didn't move from this spot for two hours.

As always, I'm the only one in this house that bothers to clean up the Christmas debris from the living room while people are opening presents. . .

After breakfast (where Kris once again made bacon and pancakes and we broke out another round of much-needed coffees), I hauled the heavy-ass box containing Abby's new drawing table downstairs into the basement and began the hours-long process of putting it together.  It ain't a Hough Family Christmas unless Yours Truly has to assemble a bunch of bullshit. . .

Once it was all set up, Abby got to work stocking it with all her old and newly-acquired drawing supplies.

Later on in the morning, once we adults had switched from coffees to mimosas, it was time to pass out on the couch to Holiday movies. . .

Slainte.

Some of my stocking haul from this year.

Later on in the afternoon, we drove over to Mom's house so that the girls could open up some gifts from Mom, John, and Grandpa Chinery.

Fleece robes/blankets for lazy girls who like lounging on the couch watching TV.

She looks like a frickin' Jedi.

Mom and Grandpa Chinery.

Not sure what he's messing with here.

More art supplies.

Alayna and a pair of not-at-all-school-appropriate boots my mom bought her.  These things look like something sex-worker mercenaries would wear in the 23rd century.

While hanging out in the kitchen around dinner time, I spotted our Christmas card displayed on mom's china cabinet.  I had to text this to my brother so he could see how our mom was displaying both our Christmas cards. . .

Thoroughly exhausted, we drove home in the evening and, all running on fumes, decided to set up the projector screen in the basement for a family movie night before we all crashed.  We ended up watching that new Disney movie Encanto, which, basically, is just a lame, Hispanic version of Moana (I don't know about you guys, but I'm about funned out with Disney's current 'woke' kick - they're trying too damn hard.)  So yeah. . . that was Christmas '21 around these parts, folks.  Hope yours was awesome as well.

- Brian