November: The Christmas Pre-Season

What's up, folks.

November, as always, flew by pretty quick this year.  What's crazy about this month is how different it can feel between the beginning of the month and the end of the month.  During the first stretch, you're drinking Pumpkin Spice Chai tea in the Teacher's Lounge at work (see picture) and sifting through the dust and debris leftover from Halloween (honestly we didn't even finish putting everything back in totes and carrying it back downstairs until well into the second week) and, by the end of the month, you're in full-blown Holiday mode, reviewing Christmas records and drinking yuletide cocktails. When all's said and done, you're left with basically one week of all that remains of 'Fall.'

So goes November.

Anyway, we stayed pretty busy this month, outside of the usual work/school grind.  We spent weeks transforming our house from Halloween Party Headquarters to the Griswold Residence, Abby had a lot of Pom stuff going on with her Northeast squad, Kris and I began knocking off items from various Christmas lists, Alayna was more or less gone with friends nearly every night of the month. . . pretty much what could be expected for this time of year.

I'll let you see for yourselves, gang - enjoy this month's installment of pics and video. . .

Whenever Samson gets into a garbage can in the house and gets busted for it, he automatically goes into this belly-up position of shame.

Towards the beginning of the month, I ran into Radio Wasteland - my first time in about 10 months (I blame my lack of shelf space and the record industry's astronomical price increase over the course of the last year) - in order to stock up on cheesy, lame Holiday vinyl from their Dollar Bin.  Ended up getting about two dozen LPs, which I'll be tearing apart over the course of the next three or four years.  Before all that can get happen, however, I had to run these $1 LPs through my Spin Clean (Jim doesn't clean his dollar albums, and I'm not about to put those filthy things on my turntable.)

Kris and I spent one weekend afternoon purging more crap out of the basement the first week of the month.  Not sure what Abby is doing here.

I've made the mistake before - more than a few times - of attempting to stock up on my favorite, limited release Holiday beers too late in the season (like, early December.)  Determined to avoid this fate in 2022, I ran over to trusty, ol' Cork N' Ale during the first week of the month to see if any of the Holiday beers had been released yet, and I finally lucked out. 

Southern Tier releases a couple awesome stouts and imperial ales (some of my all-time favorites) around the Holidays, so when I actually found these extremely hard-to-find beers on the shelves this year I pounced on 'em.  Sadly no Cinnamon Roll stout this year, but at least now I know when to go to the beer store next year - I'll definitely be keeping this in mind.

First snow of the season (kind of a rainy snow, but it's still snow.)

Crazy sunset over Buffalo Wild Wings.  Kris and I ran up to the mall in order to take advantage of some sale or something that she wanted to check out at Bath and Body Works.

I hate this store. . .

While Alayna was off with a friend and we were out shopping at the mall, the Johnsons took Abby out to a Halloween party that Erik's cousin hosts every year.  This dude goes way out for Halloween - decorating his pole barn to the nines with decor and providing food, drinks and candy for everyone at full-service bars.  Absolutely crazy.

Abby came back with candy cigarettes, which I didn't know were still a thing. . .

The next morning, at like 6:45am, Kris had to run Abby down to the Community Center in order to start her hair and make-up with the rest of the Northeast and Jefferson Pom Teams for a competition later that morning.

Kris stayed to help out, but only like two moms knew how to do the hairstyle the coaches wanted, so those two moms had to do every child's hair, which took forever I guess.  While they were out doing this, Alayna and I showered and got ourselves around so that when Kris and Abby got back to the house we could load up into the van and hit the road for the Dow Event Center in Saginaw.

Kris and Courtney.  We met up with the Johnsons outside the venue (and later my dad, too), and snagged some seats inside the arena.  We were smart enough to show up an hour early in order to nab seats, they filled up eventually to the point where employees walked around and told people they couldn't save seats for others, which is crazy.

The video file for Abby's team performance itself was far too large to upload here, but the official videographer for the event posted his videos on some random site (that they wanted you to pay for in order to get access), and some other Northeast parent somehow got a hold of it.  So here you go, America - free of charge:

https://vimeo.com/user661223/northeastms

After the last of the pom teams performed that morning, all the teams converged on the floor of the arena in order to get team pics and await their scores.

You can spot Abby there in the center.

The Northeast Pom Team (their coach is in the front to the right, and the assistant coach - dressed up like Darth Vader because she's on the SVSU Pom Team and they did a Star Wars themed routine) - is at the center.

The teams circled up and awaiting the news.  I guess this is like a custom in this sport, every team seems to do it.

And the really intense teams all pray to Mecca, not giving a shit about the direction in which they're facing.

Northeast placed 4th place, which was a respectable enough score to save face I guess - the girls all seemed cool with it.  My own school - White Pine - scored 1st.

Abby and Ella

That time of year again, time to water-proof treat and condition the ol' leather boots. . .

Nails and TV, a Hough Family staple for weekday evenings.

These kids and their frickin' signs on their bedroom doors. . .

BP's wife, Sam, got bored one evening and downloaded some weird app that gender-swaps someone's picture, so she gender-swapped Kimmel, BP, and I, along with all of our wives.  The results were pretty terrifying.  Here's Kimmel. . .

Kimmel's wife, Kat.

BP

BP's wife, Sam.

Yours Truly, looking like some chick that would try and sell you ecstasy at Lollapalooza back in 1997.

Kris, looking like a closeted gay youth pastor.

One day, after school, the girls volunteered with Kris' church handing out food to the local poor folk. . . somewhere, I forget.

We had an eerily warm week the second week of the month, thereabouts - like 65 - 70 degrees for a few days - so Kris got up on the roof while I was at work and put up our Christmas lights.  Obviously we don't turn them on until the day after Thanksgiving, but still - sure beats the hell out of doing it in the snow.

Lazy ass dogs.

I stopped off again at Cork n' Ale on my way home from work on the second Friday of the month in order to pick up some more Holiday craft beer.  Kris didn't like that, she says I have too much beer in the fridge.

The next morning.  It begins. . .

Hanging out in the basement after spending an entire Saturday transforming the house in preparation for the Holidays.

Harry Potter checkers.

Tried hooking the SNES Classic up to the projector in the basement after watching a Christmas movie - our first time doing it, it worked pretty well.

Joe and Mac.  An early '90s classic.

This is the first snow on the ground that stuck.  We haven't had snow this early in a few years.

My kids are so f***ing weird sometimes.

Alayna and her friends, Cristina and Lexi, at Kris' church one Sunday evening for Youth Group.

No idea what's happening here.

Abby recorded this at her school later on that week once we started really getting some snow. . .

Kris and her damn selfies. . .

Tug of war with the dogs.

This was pretty crazy to see in mid-November - we usually don't get snow like this until January (thanks to global warming we rarely get a White Christmas.)

One of the metal thingies in Abby's braces broke off while she was eating pretzels at Pom practice, so we had to run her up to the orthodontist for an emergency fix.  Thank God that shit was free, braces cost enough as it is.

Abby's grown out of her winter coat, and Kris has had to take her shopping for a new one multiple times.  She's incredibly picky, and would rather not wear a coat at all, so I'm pretty cool with not being involved in this process in the slightest.

The temperature fluctuations of the last week or so have caused insanely long icicles to form along the back of the house.  Some of these are nearly two feet in length, so if they fall they're going to impale a dog or child.

You can pick this up at Costco for $9, and it's hands down better than the usual mix-you-own Holiday cocktail of rum and egg nog.  It's pre-mixed with alcohol, and, while it doesn't taste very strong, it's about the same as a cocktail you'd mix on your own.  I'm a convert.

During Collier's 40th Birthday party, Alayna, Abby and Ella hung back at our house and watched movies.  And took weird pictures of each other, like this.

The next day, out shopping for poor folks.  Kris and another lady from her church took the youth group kids (and Ella) out shopping for the less fortunate - there's like this Christmas tree with cards on it, and each card has a family or kid in need and what they'd like for Christmas.  We always grab a few and then buy the desired presents, wrap them, and drop them off at the church.

Later that evening, doing some gift wrapping for their previously-acquired presents back at the church.

Another one of my favorite holiday beers. . .

Alayna posts some weird shit on her social media.

Alayna and Lexi inside some tiny bus you can pay 25 cents to 'ride' in the Midland Mall.

We had to give the dogs emergency baths after both idiots were caught rolling around in wet mud int he backyard.  That was pretty awesome.

The next weekend, Erik, Mitch and I hit up a few bars around Midland before ultimately ending up at the infamous Boulevard Lounge for some live music (which was meh.)

The next evening, hanging out with Mitch and the Johnsons back at our house, having a few drinks and listening to some Holiday vinyl. . . 

Kris, Courtney, and a brace of mutts.

Half of my garland from last year - which was pretty pricey, since it's deluxe and has like adjustable branches and stuff on it - went out suddenly, so I began shopping around for new garland.  This ended up being futile - everything was sold out or else way over-priced, so in the end I just bought another string of white lights and wove it around the existing garland.  It looks even better than it did before, and you can't tell it's an additional string - I should be doing this more often.

My classroom, currently set up for students to recreate the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

Students are assigned the role of historical delegates that were actually at the convention, and have to debate with other delegates on issues that were historically debated when the Founding Fathers created the Constitution (determining how states would be represented in Congress, how to count slaves towards population for calculating representation, how to elect a chief executive, etc.)  Takes about a week to do, but the kids really enjoy it.

Sure beats the hell out of reading from a textbook, folks.  See ya next month.

- Brian