Happy Holidays, America!
Here we are, once again at the culmination of nearly two, festive months of stress, money and weight gain.
This Christmas saw us kick things off later than we ever have before. Like I said yesterday, both girls stayed Christmas Eve over at the Angelotti's where they were dog-sitting, and didn't come back home until 5am or so (the dogs wake them up around that time to use the bathroom, so they just come home since they're up.) Alayna fell right back asleep, while Abby just sat on her bed and waited until our traditional, 6am start time.
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(All the moms sent similar pics in their Wives text thread.) |
Unfortunately for her, the three of us were still fast asleep, so she had to wait until Alayna finally got up and around, which didn't happen until - get this -
8:00am.
Oh my frickin' God, Kris and I were stoked.
So we didn't even get around to starting on stockings until nearly 8:30am, because Alayna insisted on putting a little make-up on first (knowing that I'd be taking a crap-ton of pictures throughout the gift-opening process.) While she did that, I got some coffee going and Abby put on our festive TV fireplace (courtesy of YouTube), so that all of our bases were properly covered.
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The dogs ALWAYS go nuts on Christmas Morning over their stockings. . . |
Presents ended up taking about an hour and a half this year - a little faster than the
previous year because Kris and I were once again not exchanging gifts and some of the girls' gifts were more expensive (meaning there were fewer of them.) So by
10am we were eating breakfast, drinking mimosas, and letting the Christmas Morning dust settle.
Around 2pm, once folks had showered and rested a bit (though, considering our late wake-up this morning, no one felt the need to nap), we went over to Mom's to meet up for our traditional, Christmas afternoon hangout with them, Grandpa Chinery, and my brothers and their respective families (minus Jeff's kids, who were spending Christmas with their mom, the Dark Lord Sauron.) Then, two hours and a meal later, we came back to the house to unwind with more Christmas movies, a few drinks, and a reasonable bedtime.
So there you have it, gang - another Hough Family Christmas in the books.
Let's take a look at a bunch of frickin' pictures, shall we. . .
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Alayna helps old man Watson out with his stocking (as usual.) Found these cool fetch toys for them on Amazon that consist of a squeaker in the head and then an empty sleeve for the body (you insert an empty water bottle and it's ready to rock and roll.) |
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We Santa put one of those in both of the dogs' stockings this year (it came in a four-pack so I just put two aside for next year), along with some Bark toys that they like, an assortment of dog treats of various types, and the usual giant-ass bone. |
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Samson gets to work on this bone that is way too big for him. |
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This was probably a pain in the ass for Watson due to the fact that a vet had to remove a bunch of his teeth a few years ago in order to prevent gum disease. . . |
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This kinda shit buys us some time to open up and go through our own stockings without having to shove dogs out of our faces constantly. |
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Abby checks out Samson's pig toy (it's fitting because he snorts like a pig more often than any dog should.) |
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Ready for stockings. |
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Kris does a lot of the stocking purchases in-store, preferring that to the way I shop for Christmas presents (hunting down deals online.) |
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Winnie the Pooh nails, to use on our upcoming Florida vacation with the Johnsons (coming in June 2025.) |
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(I think those are K-Pop cards.) |
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Found a sampler collection of Sol de Janiero for the old ball n' chain's stocking this year, which cost far more than a fragrance set should, but whatever. |
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Kris threw another set of those wax melts that smell like Disney World rides in my stocking this year. This one, based on The Haunted Mansion, is my personal favorite - makes your house smell like the Haunted Mansion, which is pretty badass. |
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And it came with a room spray, too. So after you drop a deuce you can make the bathroom smell like there were ghosts in there (I guess.)
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Alayna picked out Kris a water cup from the new Wicked movie. Kris has been a huge fan of the franchise since she saw the play over a decade ago, and has seen it three times on stage (including once or twice with the girls.) |
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Coffee. Always appreciated. |
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This was a pretty cool gift Alayna picked out. So they have these necklaces you can order online where you upload a picture and the jeweler shrinks the image down and somehow embeds it into the stone of the necklace. |
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So Alayna picked out a picture of Kris and her dad, and so when you press the jewel right up to your eye - like Kris is doing here - you can see the image clearly (resolution is pretty impressive.) |
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Samson is having the time of his life. |
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Alayna got a lot of car accessories this year, and most of them were pink and black (because, seeing how it's Alayna, everything had to match a certain aesthetic.) |
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The dogs had, by this point in time, come back into our part of the living room, having devoured their fetch sticks/bones/whatever. |
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Jumper Cables. |
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Shoes. |
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More shoes. |
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She had this ceramic succulent sculpture on her Amazon list that is designed to hold rings, which is probably a really good idea because she wears between four and six rings on her hand at all times. |
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Yet another hair accessory for Abby (she has like half a dozen already, but was insistent on this one. . . which I think is another hair straightener.) |
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Both girls got a shit-ton of clothes this year (I didn't take pictures of everything they unwrapped this year, since Kris asked that I 'scale it back' a bit.) |
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We ordered a bunch of MagicBand+ bracelets for our upcoming trip to Disney World, since this time around we'll be staying on Disney property at one of their resorts, and these MagicBands can be used to buy things, open doors, get admission into certain areas, etc. etc. |
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Later on in the day we'd link up the girls' MagicBands to their own Disney accounts, which, after awhile of struggling with the app, we were able to all sync up together under the same itinerary and overall family account. Hooray for technology. |
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Kris also went and picked out some 'Mickey Ears' for the girls to wear around while we're down there. Winnie the Pooh for Abby, seeing how that's her favorite Disney character. |
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The Cannonball checks out her new MagicBand+. |
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Abby got a bunch of name-brand shit this year, which is beyond stupid (ex. she got $60 worth of Nike socks, which is only a dozen pairs), but best of luck telling a teenager that. |
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The Cannonball's favorite Disney character (Marvell, technically, but it's now owned by Disney, so it counts) is Spiderman. |
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We gave Abby some cash so that she could open up her own debit account and get a card for it at our local credit union. We had to set up an appointment for the 27th and she had to be present for the account opening, so we weren't able to present her with her card all ready to roll by Christmas morning, which sucks, but whatever. We did this with Alayna a few years ago, and having the girls able to manage their own finances - they can use their own debit card, and log in to the bank app to transfer money between their checking and savings account, keep track of their balances, etc. - is a god-send. |
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Kris picked out a couple Spider Man things off the Disney Store site to go with Alayna's new Mickey Ears . . . |
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These LoungeFly/Disney mini-backpacks are pretty popular, the girls love 'em. This one is just about perfect, and she's already excited to break it in on the upcoming Florida trip. |
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That's some kinda beauty item. I have no idea what it's purpose is. |
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That's what $60 looks like, folks. Name brand socks. |
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Gotta have them long lashes, guys. |
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Abby, too, scored some over-priced Sol de Janeiro body spray this year. |
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The Cannonball usually asks for room decor each year, and this Christmas was no exception. We picked out a few items off her list that she had been wanting, like these black, silk sheets for her bed. |
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Winding down with gift opening, about an hour and a half into our Christmas Morning. |
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Both girls have modest record collections - Alayna has about a dozen or so albums, Abby about thirty - so I decided to pick out a new album for each girl as a little 'bonus' gift. I snatched up this Beatles 1's compilation because Abby really loves the Beatles and this one came with a bunch of posters for her room. |
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Alayna, meanwhile, got this K-Pop compilation from the folks at Now That's What I Call Music, which, too, included, a bunch of posters, mini-posters, and cards of the various artists on the album. |
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Technically this was supposed to be in Kris' stocking, but obviously it wouldn't fit. I got her this same sampler of champagne last year and she was hoping I'd do so again. |
After we had finished up all our gift-opening - and Kris and I had switched over from coffee to mimosas - my homeboy BP sent me a text saying that his wife, Sam, and bought him a personalized, video message for Christmas off the site Cameo (which I had never heard of.) He sent us a link to the video, and, upon opening it, there was a two-minute, personalized video from one actor Billy Boyd, who played BP's favorite character, Peregrin "Pippin" Took in The Lord of the Rings movies. Based on his message, which was super cool, Sam must have been prompted to include a bunch of information so Boyd had something to talk about. You can imagine my elevation when, towards the last bit of the video, Boyd mentions two of BP's friends by name - Kimmel and Yours Truly. To have Pippin from The Lord of the Rings SAY MY F***ING NAME definitely made my Christmas morning.
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Like last year, once the gifts were all opened, both girls high-tailed it back to their rooms to video-conference with their respective friend groups to talk about the stuff they had gotten for Christmas, as well as to set up their new plunder in their rooms. |
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I had to help Alayna with her new bed sheets, since she has these fastener-thingies on her bed that keep her mattress sheet in place. |
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Samson, totally weirded out by the non-stop activity this morning. |
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Alayna had a bunch of new androgynous Koreans to put up on her wall, having gotten more photo cards in her stocking and that aforementioned album I got her. She's almost out of room.
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Around 2pm, we loaded up both girls into the van and drove a few blocks over to Mom's house to visit with the extended family and grab some food. |
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Grandpa Chinery, Alayna, Kris, and John |
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As always, Mom ran around like a chicken with her head cut off making sure everyone knew where everything was and failing to grab herself anything. |
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Chris and Nicole brought over a bunch of cookies and baked goods that they had acquired from their kids and whoever else, hoping folks would devour them and then take them home so they wouldn't have to. Little did they realize that we were in the exact same position as they were, and weren't about to take shit home. |
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A hell of a lot of food for fifteen people. |
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Letting the grandkids open up some presents. |
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After a couple hours over at Mom's house, we came home and lounged around for a bit in front of the TV. |
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After awhile, we made our way downstairs to hang out in the basement and listen to music. |
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I sat behind the bar, shopped for bar decor and had a cocktail while Kris and the girls colored. Alayna had bought me a shadow box off my Amazon list to display one of my Mayan pieces in the Study, but it was too lightweight to hold the ten-pound tablet. After seeing it in person I realized it wouldn't work for display purposes, so I plan on returning it and, seeing how she bought me something to hang on the walls, I decided to use the money she spent on me towards purchasing more bar decor for the wall behind the bar instead. |
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Broke out my lightsaber while we were all sitting around hanging out, and set it to 'Gay' just for funsies. So that's how we closed out Christmas '24, Internet - we'll see you folks next year. |
- Brian
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