Christm- er, New Years Day - in Clare

Hey folks,

So today is officially the first day of 2026; in the past we've celebrated this by lying around the house in pajamas, recovering from the night before (which is always rough.) This year, however, my parents decided to try for a do-over for the extended Hough Family Christmas, seeing how our decades-long tradition of doing it the day after Christmas was torpedoed by a hellish ice storm that crippled all of central Michigan. We reluctantly agreed to drive up to Clare in order to meet up with all of our siblings and families, because - as stated before - we were all in pretty rough shape.

We ended up rolling in around 2:30pm, after Jeff and Chris' kids had finished tearing into their gifts from Dad and Cindy, and Alayna and Abby were finally able to open up theirs. Following that, everyone tore into the now-expected Qdoba spread, caught up with Bryan and Chelsey via Facetime (or whatever similar app was used, I wasn't paying attention), swapped gifts in the usual White Elephant gift exchange, and hung out with extended fam until evening.

The folks' charcuterie spread. . .

All in all, a quieter affair than normal (you can tell 'cause there's only like a third of the amount of pics I usually take), but it was a good time. Definitely did not feel like Christmas, but that's to be expected considering that crap was, like, a week or so ago. Hopefully next year things will return to form and we'll be able to celebrate the Holidays when it actually feels like the Holidays.

Here you go, folks - the smaller-than-usual, delayed, Extended Hough Family Christmas. 

Enjoy. . .

. . . featuring the infamous Meat Flower.

Alayna and Abby, opening up their gifts from the parents. . .

Alayna wanted one of those trendy Owala water bottles (that's the in-style brand right now, kinda like how Stanleys were a couple years ago), and some mug for Abby (didn't catch the story behind that.)

Alayna has been taking Watson's passing pretty hard, so she had asked for things that would remind her of him for Christmas this year, so the parents got her this frame and a couple other keepsakes along those lines. Abby had this random photo printer that connects to her phone on her list, which makes sense because she's about as obsessed with taking pics as I am.

That's a tiny printer.

This necklace features a locket that you can fill with your dead pet's ashes.

Cindy had margaritas out and ready to roll when we showed up, which paired nicely with the giant Mexican spread we grazed on all afternoon.

Dad and Cindy at the Kids' Table with some grandkids.

Jill, Chris and Kris (stuffing her damn face.)

Assorted Houghs finishing up Qdoba in the dining room.

Bryan phoned in from Nashville as folks were finishing up with food, seeing how him and Chelsey weren't able to fly up this year.

After we had the video call with Bryan up and running, we kicked off this year's White Elephant gift exchange. I handed out numbers for folks to draw out of a hat, and we selected gifts in that order. Kept the rules this year similar to what we used at the Sheahan's Christmas party, just scaled down a bit since we had fewer people (gifts could only be stolen twice instead of three times, etc.)

Bryan and Chelsey watch the opening of gifts from Tennessee.

There wasn't a whole lot of stealing this year - folks were either content or didn't really want any of the other gifts, who knows. I went next to last, so ended up with this Lego-ish flower set, which I gifted to my kids (who love that sort of thing.)

We got home around 6:30pm or so, and the girls set to work putting together their plastic bouquet while Kris and I resumed our movie-watching and lounging about the living room.

Another milkshake stout to close out the end of an unusual, but enjoyable, New Years Day.

- Brian

'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