The Great Christmas Record Odyssey, Ep. VI

Welcome back.

Since we're running short on Holiday music review time, I'm going to double-up on my album reviews from this point forward.  Check out what we have going on today. . .

Album Title:  A Charlie Brown Christmas

Album Artist:  The Vince Guaraldi Trio

Very rarely does one album sum up the entire Holiday season in one fury of sonic awesomeness, but this well-known jazz standard is the staple of the Hough Family Holiday Season.  Every track features the Vince Guaraldi Trio keeping it lose and festive, showcasing their chops while at the same time adhering to each Christmas carol's core melody (something you would think would be simple, but that sooooo many other jazzy Christmas albums fail to do.)

And to top it all off?  The record itself is a festive green.  I mean, that's just awesome.

Long story short, this is perfection achieved.

VERDICT:  10/10 - . . .And Out Come the Wolves  (A flawless Christmas album that receives the same perfect score as the other flawless album that bears its name)

- REMAINS IN CIRCULATION -

reviews from this point forward.  Check out what we have going on today. . .

Album Title:  Your Favorite Christmas Music, Volume 4

Album Artist:  Various Artists

Oh, Granny. . .

I seem to have a ton of these different compilation albums, inherited from God Knows Where.  Most, I take it, are from my dad's mom (ol' Granny Hough, that is) - one only needs to glance upon the inexplicable scrawling across the front cover to identify the OCD-ness of a Hough.  Plus it's in calligraphy, and that's been Granny's calling card for years.

This particular album was recorded in 1965 (see calligraphy at left), and definitely sounds like it.  Not the fun, hip, British Invasion mid-60s, either.  No, this is the stuffy music of the World War II generation - once America's Greatest Generation, now reduced to yelling from their living room recliners at their teenage children about cutting their mop tops and secretly thinking kids' shaggy hair might have something to do with the Communists.

Thanks, Firestone.

Here's something a little random concerning this particular compilation - it's from Firestone.  That's right, Firestone.  As in the automotive tire company.

What the hell are they doing producing Christmas albums?

I'm assuming this was part of a promotion they were running back in 1965.  Maybe Grandpa Hough loaded up Granny, my dad, and my Aunt Lucy up into the family station wagon one December day and drove up to Bob's Tire Emporium.  Perhaps he was going to have some new tires put on the car, and the mechanic there suggested upgrading to the Firestone tires, as they were giving away a 'free Christmas album' with the purchase of four, brand new Firestone tires.  Knowing my grandfather, he wouldn't have jumped at this, BUT maybe Granny got all excited about it and, rolling his eyes, Grandpa Hough had no choice but to relent and go with the Firestones.

And now I'm reviewing the result of that purchase on a frickin' blog.  Fifty years later.

Anyway, back to the album itself.  It's ok.  Yes, just ok.  Nothing too terrible to mention (though the operatic singing gets a little jarring at times), but it sounds like a heap of other Christmas compilations I already own.  Julie Andrews makes a few appearances on this otherwise bland, Pavarotti-styled Christmas compilation, and her songs are halfway decent.  Alas, even Mary Poppins herself can't save this album from being sent back to its former place on the Not-in-Holiday-Rotation shelves.

VERDICT:  6/10 - Meh. (ok. . . but there's better albums out there to sit in its place of glory next to my turntable.)

- SHELVED -

- Brian

Pumpkins, Cookies, and Inappropriate Behavior

Hey players...

With Halloween a week off, the Houghs decided it was time, once again, to engage in some good ol' fashioned gourde-wranglin' and nab our pumpkins for the season. And, once again, we opted to hit up the upscale, creepy, Edward Scissorhands-esque suburb of Celebration for our Halloween scavenging.

Celebration - for those of you who reside outside of Orange County - or may otherwise not understand the aforementioned descriptors of said suburb - is a geographical area in southwest Orlando where most of the Disney executives live. There's no trash in the streets, there's no hobos pan-handling at stoplights for loose change and cigarettes, and there's an eerie amount of white people afoot per capita.

See? Edward Scissorhands.

Anyway, while Celebration may have a shortage of, say, booming Reggaeton pumping from Honda Civics, it more than makes up for it in average household incomes. People in Celebration are loaded, and, accordingly, every community event they coordinate is extraordinarily awesome.

Take, for example, their community pumpkin patches...

As we did last year with my parents, this year Kris, myself and the tax deductions decided to hit up the Celebration Presbyterian Church's Pumpkin Patch for Halloween. They have a solid selection to choose from, and they set everything up with tons of seasonal decor so that horribly-obnoxious parents can take hundreds of pictures of their kids drooling about, smearing their grubby paws all over everything.

You will never see a higher concentration of digital SLR cameras per capita anywhere else in the continental United States in your life. I guarantee it.

Anyway, we planned on meeting up with the Tayler family while we were there. Their son has been a classmate (and beau) of the Cannonball for a few years now, and they're also seasoned toddler-herders. Below is a crap-load of snapshots and video snippets to highlight our hour and a half of over-priced, kid-friendly, gourd acquisition.

Enjoy:

Abby's post-freak out, impromptu nap... prior to leaving for the 'Patch

Rock-hard determination.

At the Great Pumpkin Patch

Celebration Presbyterian Pumpkin Patch

Inappropriate behavior...

Houghtoberfest

...This year I made sure I didn't poke my head through the Witch hole. I ain't no lady.

_______________________

Later that day, after our two disaster-bomb children had taken their usual not-as-long-as-it-should-have-been nap, Kris decided it'd be a good time to throw together some Halloween cookies. Seeing how this combines two of ours kids' favorite things in life - art and sugar - it should come to no surprise that our kids took to this activity like Michael Jackson to a young boy*.

Observe the process...

Stay tuned for next week, folks - when the Houghs don over-priced shreds of poorly-made fabric and go out into the public in order to obtain sugar handouts from complete strangers!

- Brian

* You heard me...