'Twas the Night Before Christmas

Season's Greetings, folks.

So here we are at long last - the pinnacle of the Holiday Season. Technically tomorrow morning is the big event, but since it's basically just two hours of gift-opening followed by a short visit to Mom's, we've always looked at Christmas Eve as a bigger deal. Like I've said before, with our girls being older now, the enjoyment of watching kids tear into a mountain of presents has been replaced with teens patiently opening up a handful of far more expensive gifts in a fraction of the time, then disappearing to their rooms to FaceTime with friends and compare their presents. 

I miss buying, wrapping, and giving out toys so damn much.

As I've stated before, we've been making this Christmas Eve of ours a Laginess extended family event for the last nine or ten years, hosting an informal drop-in and stay however long you want sort of a deal for whomever is around. I cook up a giant turkey, we offer up a table full of sides, desserts and various Holiday booze, and have crafts and activities (like gingerbread house making) for folks. Some years we have a house full of folks, other years it's just one or two relatives, and each year more or less plays out the same.

A morning coffee with Kris and Samson before I had to prep the turkey. . .

This year, neither Kris nor myself were really feeling the whole 'hosting' thing, so we didn't really invite anyone over, aside from Kris' niece, Victoria, who lives in Midland now. This was fine for us, since the turkey that we had - a 12 pound Butterball I had won the month before in a trivia challenge at work - was smaller and wouldn't have been able to feed a dozen or so relatives while still having enough to make the couple leftover meals that I usually make the week after Christmas (Southwestern Turkey Soup, etc.)

As a result, it was a lot more chill this year. I took far fewer pictures than I usually do (hence this being a much shorter post than in previous years), we had more down time in which to focus on other things, and we even managed to squeeze in a traditional church service in the evening after everyone had left.

All in all, it was another solid Christmas Eve for the Houghs, as you can ascertain from the following pictures.

Enjoy. . .

Prepping the turkey with my usual 'Michigander Home style Turkey' recipe. . .

It's on Allrecipes.com, in case you're curious - it's always a hit. I dry-brine the turkey for a few days before doing the actual pre-roasting prep work, which makes the meat super tender and moist.

After a half an hour of prep-work, I threw the turkey in the oven (tented in foil) for three hours. I didn't flip the turkey upside down his year, nor did I remove the foil for the last half hour of roasting in order to brown the skin - the skin was already pulled taught from the dry-brining this year, and I didn't want to risk it splitting.

Our food table, pre-food set up (I was just testing the SLR's settings.)

From left to right: Alayna's, Sebastian's, and Abby's gingerbread houses from the day before.

Some of the cookies and sweets that were given to us from various friends and co-workers over the last week or two.

Some gingerbread mulled wine, all warmed up and ready for mugs.

A classic Holiday offering that folks always forget about, I frickin' love it.

In the late morning, as food was being prepped and folks began getting around for the day, Kris gave the girls a small, combo gift to open. . .

A custom, 520-piece puzzle of our two dogs, hanging out in the Study. Kris figured this would be a fun activity for us to do during the downtime throughout the day.

Opening up some gift cards from Grandma Marcy.

We decided to start the puzzle in the basement shortly after lunch, and, seeing how it was after noon and everything, I deemed it time to crack open one of my all-time favorite Holiday beers.

Hard at work.

Kris and Abby popped in from time to time to help out, but most of this undertaking was tackled by the Cannonball and I.

Around 3pm, I took the turkey out of the oven and prepared to carve it up into white, dark, and leftover meat (for the soup I want to make next week.)

Had this spinning while I was taking care of my turkey duties - hard rock Christmas staple.

The finished product (which Alayna hammered out all by herself in the basement.) The books and cabinets (and dogs) were pretty easy, but the chairs were a pain in the ass.

With the turkey done and the food being set out for guests, we had some more down time, so I had a beer and put on my second favorite Christmas movie (which I prefer to stream off YouTube, which has the full version of the video plus all the commercial breaks with the original 1987 commercials included.)

Rock and roll.

About an hour later, Victoria, her boyfriend Stephen, and their respective kids (Julian and Sophia) showed up to hang out for a bit. Kris bought each kid a present so they'd have something to open up while they were over.

Sophia showing Vic her new stuffed animal (that of course talks.)

Since the Johnsons are basically family, we invited them over for a few drinks and snacks. They were in the same boat as us, just killing time before they were heading out to an evening church service (they go to Trinity Lutheran, across town.)

Ella and Abby

Kris got a super awesome deal with our local hockey team, the Saginaw Spirit, during Black Friday. Six tickets for the price of two, something like that. She decided to make it a combo gift so each girl got three tickets, which allows them to go together once, and once each with a boyfriend or something, or any combination thereof, depending on how they want to do it. Both girls are super into hockey, so this was a no-brainer. 

Back upstairs, grazing at the snack table and having some drinks while we killed time before the church services.

Abby keeps the kids from wandering into the Study, where the kids would probably break a bunch of shit (you know, 'cause they're toddlers and toddlers are wild animals.)

Erik, Courtney and Kris.

These two cannot hang out together without regressing to a six-year-old mindset.

The current state of Alayna's walls. She's got a knack for decor, I'll give her that much.

After Vic and her fam took off, and the Johnsons set off for their own church service, it was time for us to load up and drive downtown for the traditional, 7pm service (Abby and Kris both wanted to go to this one this year, and Alayna and I were indifferent as always.)

The candlelight service at First United Methodist. Unlike the half-hour, carol-based services we've gone to in previous years, this was a full, hour-long service, just with more music and no sermon (which I was more than okay with.)

It was packed to the gills inside the sanctuary, so we had to take seats upstairs in the balcony (which we've only done on a handful of occasions in the last decade.)

After the service, I nabbed a pic of Kris and the girls on our way out of the church.

Back home, we had a few more things to knock off the ol' Christmas Eve Check List before turning in for the night. . .

Put this bad boy on as we started off into our end-of-the-day routine. I discovered it a couple years ago, it's phenomenal.

Opening up the traditional Christmas Eve presents (pajamas as always, just like every other family in the United States.)

Kris had these pants custom made on Etsy, featuring Watson's face and his favorite Bark Box toy, St. Pickelous (a pickle with a Santa hat on it, Watson was obsessed with it.)

Kris also threw in matching, black shirts for everyone - just something basic as to not distract from the pants.

I was already wearing a black shirt throughout the day, so we took one with my old first. . . but Kris didn't like it so she forced me to change into a second black shirt (the one she got me when she bought hers and the girls' shirts.) Happy wife, happy life.

The Houghs' annual Christmas Eve pic.

We forced the girls to wind-down and sequester themselves to their bedrooms at 9:30pm so that Kris and I could bring up and set out all the gifts and stockings before turning in ourselves. As tradition dictates, we put on my all-time favorite Christmas movie, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, while we set to work.

Wouldn't be Christmas Eve without a Merry Irishman. . .

The gifts all set out under the tree. Didn't take as long this year because, like I explained earlier, there are far fewer gifts now that each of the girls' presents have, like, quadrupled in price (at the very least.)

This feeling perfectly sums up the vibe of Christmas Eve, once everything is finished for the coming morning.

The stage is set for Christmas Morning. Stay tuned for tomorrow's installment, gang. . .

- Brian

Family Portrait Session

Collier works his magic while posing the girls.

'Sup, Fam.

As some of you guys know, we Houghs didn't send out Christmas Cards last year. Totally dropped the ball. It's not like we didn't want to, mind you, but rather we never worked out how to get decent family pictures done in our hectic schedule in the months leading up to the Holidays. And we didn't have anyone to take them.

In previous years, our friend Collier - a freelance wedding photographer - takes portraits of all the families in our extended friend group. We, like the other families involved, end up using pictures from these sessions for our annual Christmas Cards. Alas, he was otherwise occupied last year with his wedding photography crap, but this year - thank God - he was able to once again schedule a random Sunday and assign people 20-minute slots for family photos.

So, for twenty minutes this afternoon, over at Midland City Forest this time around, he took pics of me, Kris and the girls. Weather was a little overcast but otherwise good, and for a small donation of $50 he took a bunch of pictures, touched them in Adobe Lightroom, and kicked 'em back to us in a week or two.

Not a bad deal at all, folks. And now this year, once again, you will all be receiving some flashy, new Christmas Cards. So, you know. . . keep an eye out on that ol' mailbox.

Here's a few from today's session, folks - enjoy.

The Houghs, ca. 2023.

Standing in the middle of a trail, for no reason. Like we always do.

Collier's a big fan of taking 'candid' pictures of families walking in a line towards him. He says 'just talk to each other and walk towards me,' and we end up with pics like this.

The Hough Girls.

(This one seems more accurate.)

We had to coerce them into actually touching one another for these pics - they usually shove each other off.

Abby

The Cannonball

And one of us, sans kids.

On our walk back towards the parking lot - the Larsons were next on his schedule - Collier spotted this rickety, wooden fence at the top of the ol' sledding hill and had us pose behind it.

And finally, for whatever reason, our kids requested Ryan take a picture of them at the top of the sledding hill, shaking hands.  I have no idea why - kids are weird - but Collier obliged.

- Brian