Merry Christmas Mr. Bean

It appears as if the Elf has set up a kissing booth, although these kisses are altogether different, the chocolate kind, and in fact "the taste of Christmas."

We were busy today, of course.  That's how it is leading up to the big day, which is only a hop, skip and a jump away from here now.  Mommy was off shopping, so Daddy and Madison were wrapping some of her Christmas presents.  We did this while listening to some Christmas records we have, like the Star Wars "Christmas in the Stars" and the Sesame Street Christmas record, both classics!  

Daddy has been busy writing devotional entries too.  Madison spent her first day of Christmas break playing games, but she was helping out with the cleaning too.  We had leaves in the front yard to contend with, thanks to these dreadful Bradford Pear trees.  Lots of boxes were carried downstairs, and decorations hung up on the walls.  Decorating for Christmas is a bigger process this year than most, as we've got company coming for dinner on Monday.  Due to their house being renovated, which is due to three trees crashing through it, Ye-Ye and Nana won't be hosting this year - they're coming to our house.

We were going to get a Christmas present for Aunt Shain, a movie popcorn tub from a local theater.  This would be in conjunction with seeing a movie tonight, but then Madison shot that idea down by saying, "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is on tonight!"

So we stayed home and watched a few Christmas episodes before that, including the absolutely hilarious Johnny Bravo Christmas episode, and then "Merry Christmas, Mr. Bean."

This is a great episode.  We watched this, and a few other episodes before heading upstairs.  This was Madison's first exposure to Mr. Bean, and it was lots of fun.  We have the box set with all the episodes, plus two movies, so there'll be other opportunities to see Mr. Bean for sure.  Finally, we all snuggled upstairs for the latest episode of the above television series, which was pretty awesome.

We're almost done with the devotional, and moving along with the Nutcracker story, which now involves a rat queen that's out to kill a princess baby.  Yes, that's a bit off from the ballet.  Interesting though!  By the time we're done with this book, we'll have a few more that should be delivered Christmas morning.  Madison put a lot of books on her letter to Santa.

The leaf process in the front yard could not be finished today.  It's just raining too much.  Tonight it started raining actually a bit harder, and tomorrow is not going to be much better.  Best to let it go for now.  Daddy was out there for about an hour, and there were a lot of leaves.  

Speaking of which, it's time to make like a tree... and get out of here.