Merry Christmas, Mr. Bean

Daddy preached this morning to roughly a thousand people. But then it was time to come home and get some rest. We had play practice tonight, which Madison loves coming to. She gets to watch movies and play with her friends. Life is great, isn't it?

Meanwhile, Mommy and Daddy are stressing about that, about moving, about deadlines for the services and about all sorts of things. Surely, it'll all work itself out soon.

To make things a bit calmer, Daddy and Mommy continued putting up the big Christmas tree, and watched a Christmas movie tonight. Actually, we watch a lot of Christmas movies each year. By my estimate, we have seventy to eighty different Christmas movies. Some are just a half-hour long, like "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer." Madison loves that one. She also enjoyed "Olive the Other Reindeer" and the other Christmas movies we've found for her along the way.

Others are of the longer variety, like "The Preacher's Wife," or "Miracle on 34th Street." We have a ton of these movies, and seem required by law to watch each and every one leading up to the big day. Forget seeing anything un-Christmas related for the next few months: it's all about movies like "Elf," "A Christmas Carol" and "The Santa Clause" (parts 1, 2 and 3!).

One recommendation we just watched was "Merry Christmas, Mr. Bean." This one is hilarious if you get a chance to watch it. Then again, we love Mr. Bean. That goes back a few years ago...

...We were both set to go on a cruise with Royal Caribbean. Unfortunately, Mommy got really sick on day one - the end result being that we were in our cabin for much of the time. Daddy wouldn't leave Mommy's side during that time, and there was very little to do. I didn't bring a book with me, so I turned on the television. And there he was: Mr. Bean. I'd never seen Mr. Bean before, and right there on the television on the cruise ship was this huge Mr. Bean marathon.

Mommy woke up to the sound of Daddy laughing, so she naturally had to check out what was going on. And soon she was watching too. Laughter really is good medicine, as Mommy eventually got well enough to make the trip to explore a tiny bit of Nassau (we went to the Pirate's Museum together: arrrr!). And then she got even better, so we were able to go to dinner together that night. But neither of us will forget that breaking moment when something potentially highly miserable turned into something a bit more special. All thanks to Mr. Bean!