Ep. 21 - Don't Worry, It's Not Really His Baby

The girls get cozy for “Three Wise Men and A Baby.” Exploding diapers, dance routines and shocking parental neglect abound!

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
This is the FCB Podcast Network.Well, everybody, Mary Christmas, this
is another very merry podcast. I'myour host, Kiera Davison. I'm here

(00:23):
with my very Mary co host,Amelia Hamilton. Amelia, how are you
doing this week? Hi? Iam doing well. It is beautiful and
cold and sunny, which is myfavorite. This week's movie was super cute,
just as predicted, and it's notusually the kind of thing you would
see on Hallmark. We're going totalk about that a little bit later.
I want to talk about it anyway, because I did something this week that

(00:49):
had an effect on how I'm lookingat everything that's going on with Hallmark.
But anyway, our movie this weekwas Three Wise Men and a Baby,
and you were just so looking forwardto it because it stars some of our
favorite Hallmark men and it looked socute and it delivered. It definitely delivered
on the cuteness, Amelia, Sotake us away it did. It was

(01:11):
super cute. It was super cuteThree Wise Men and a Baby, which
starred Okay, So it's about threebrothers, Stephen who's played by Paul Campbell.
Stephen, not Stephen Taylor Brenner,who was played by Taylor Hines and
oh sorry, Tyler plays Taylor excuseme, and Luke, who is played

(01:34):
by Andrew Walker. And you'll knowall of them if your Hallmark watchers,
they'll all be familiar to you.So we start by meeting the three brothers.
So first we have Luke and immediatelyI was like, this movie is
going to be different because he's shirtlessin a towel, looking in the mirror
doing affirmations for himself. And Iwas like, oh, yeah, don't

(01:57):
work shirts on Hallmark now okay,yeah, he was naked, like my
my notes say nudity. Now itwas hallwork munity. He had talent on
his ways, but um, hewas not only with go ahead a milia
I need kind of implies some nuditytoo though, because you know, come
on. Also, it did notescape me that he was um, very

(02:23):
shaven, like he had totally waxedhis chest. And I was just like,
okay, Hallmark, are we doingthis? We usually do not get
this amount of community from a minute. The only the thing the movie that
it reminded me of where this didhappen in another shocking way and it's an

(02:43):
older movie, was um, whatwas the one that you recommended it.
It was an oldie, but goody. It was about the guy who was
the Christmas Parade in Chicago. Hewas had been the Thanksgiving Day parade.
Love at the Thanksgiving Day parade.There was nudity in that. There was
a scene where he had a towelwrapped around it. Yeah, and we

(03:04):
talked about it. Oh, wetalked about it. Yea. So I
was like, Okay, I seehow we're starting off here. Yeah,
and there is there's a summer oneI can't remember what it's called, with
hot sassafras and he swims so he'sin a swimsuit with note you know,
obviously not wearing a shirt, butthe difference than a towel. And even
at that, I was like,ohoh, he's not wearing a shirt.
This is this is a lot forHallmark, but a swimsuit is still it's

(03:27):
a different vibe than a towel.Definitely, I definitely felt like that they
raised the heat on this one alittle bit. Shocking beginning. It was
a shocking beginning. And he's doingit. So he's doing affirmations in a
mirror and his mom interrupts him.So we know he lives with his mom.
Now he puts on a shirt togo downstairs and see his mom,
and from his shirt we can tellhe is a fireman. And the mom
is saying that aunt, what's hername, Louise Lucille or something the aunt

(03:51):
and the aunt is Blair Louise fromthe original Gossip Girl by the way,
So she's like, listen, Iwant you and your brothers to help spruce
up the house. Aunt Louise iscoming. It's going to be super exciting.
We want it to be like areally great Christmas. You guys work
together for once. And he's like, nah, maybe all right. So
now we cut to Taylor, thenext brother, and he is at work,

(04:13):
which he works for. Um it'scalled fun in f U N N
I N games Like fun in games, very cute, very hallmarky, almost
as good as food stuff. Yeah, he's um, he's a he works
for a gaming He's like, hemakes video games. He's like a gaming
I don't know, a designer programor something. Yes, um, they
were all supposed to dress up today. He did not. He just wore

(04:36):
like a little pin under his shirtunder his little coat thing, which we
find out that his co worker Fiona, who he used to date. His
mom gave him the pin and shewas like, yeah, the pin lasted
longer than our relationship, so thereyou go. He's like, yeah,
we see that Luke is naked.Guy naked. Other is perfect, right,

(05:01):
He's doing his affirmations. He's livingwith his mom so he can help
her do the things around the housethat she needs done. He's a firefighter.
He's a firefighter, so he youknow, he's pretty much perfect.
He's mister responsible, it seems.But Taylor, that guy won't even you
know, get dressed up for theChristmas. Yeah. No, he's and

(05:23):
he works at a video game Company'stotally immature. Well except we're about to
get a twist on where he works. Good Fiona is like, listen before
the boss starts talking to you,to tell you something about the artwork.
But she gets interrupted by the bossshowing everybody the artwork and there's a snowman
in it, and Taylor does nothave time for your ridiculous snowman. This

(05:46):
is a serious video game about somethingthat I don't remember. Aliens, aliens,
I was gonna see space, soI was closed, And so he
causes a big scene and he getsfired from funding games. Except then he's
like, no, wait, Iquit and the boss is like, you
don't quit because because I fired you. So I thought this was actually kind
of funny. He goes out backinto like the rest of the employees are

(06:06):
because he just got yelled at inthe boss's office and he's like, I
quit, Coode's coming with me,and this guy yells nobody likes you.
You know what. This movie actuallyhad some genuine laughs in it. I
was watching it with Mark, andMark was not happy to watch it because
it wasn't a typical Hallmark romance.He didn't want to be watching it.

(06:29):
But then we ended up having somelike genuine laughs. Yeah, yeah,
and that was one and it waslike, so nobody wants to go with
him? All right, now it'stime to meet brother three, which I
wrote down Steven here, But itturns out it's Steffen and he is kind
of like the uptight, anxious one. So it turns out that he is

(06:56):
a dog therapist and he is workingwith um this dog and the woman,
and the woman keeps talking about likebeing lonely and blah blah. Obviously it's
about her. And he wrote abook called Prime Mates for Life, which

(07:17):
he himself does not recommend reading.Right, he is he's a therapist for
dogs, but he's also very anxioushimself. He doesn't like crowds, being
around a lot of people. Andthen right, and and he is,
um, probably the mister rules right, like the rule follower of the brothers.

(07:43):
Yeah, yeah, well, Idon't know. Don't you think Luke
is a rule follower too? Idon't know. Luke seemed like Luke will
break the rules if if something needsto be rescued saved. You know,
Luke will always do the right thing, but Stefan will he'll only ever follow
the rule. Yes, Stephan willonly ever follow the role distinction, speaking
of Luke, We're not back atthe firehouse, which I thought the beginning

(08:05):
was a little bit disjointed, goingback and forth between the brothers a lot.
But oh well I did too.My husband. Actually, I'm glad
you said that. My husband saidthe same thing. He's like, this
movie's taking a really long time tothree men and a baby it. Oh,
I yeah, we're this is alot of set up. Yeah,
and I felt like they could havedone like they did, like a bunch
of really short scenes going between allthe brothers at the beginning, where they

(08:26):
could have just done like three longerscenes introducing everyone, but they didn't.
So we're back at the firehouse andit turns out that whenever Luke is on
duty, the beauty salon calls nineone one, just hoping the hell show
up because he's mister January and thecalendar and they love him and they want
to see him. No judgment,Okay, a little bit of judgment because
you know taxpayers are paying for that. Oh well, you know sometimes in

(08:50):
the Hallmark universe, though I imaginethat the taxes aren't that high. That's
true, that's true. Okay,So that was like the entire your scene
back to Loot back time. Who'strying to get a dog to chase a
ball, and the dog does wantto chase the ball, but he's he's
at like he's at a park.So the animal shelter. This guy who
comes up to him turns out heworks for the animal shelter and he wants

(09:11):
him to give a talk on responsiblepet ownership and like not adopting a dog
just for the holidays and blah blahblah. So he like he kind of
like panics and doesn't answer hides behinda bush and starts like up in pills,
and he goes, I don't likesurprises, and I thought the pills
were kind of a lot. Imean, I get it, sometimes you
need a Zanex, but why yeahin Hallmark. Yeah, usually love is

(09:33):
the cure for anxiety, not XANX. I will like, I would like
to take this moment, Amelia,to reiterate this message of holiday adoptions.
A lot of times you'll go intoa shelter and they will tell you,
well, at least here in California, they will tell you, we need

(09:54):
all members of your household here,Yeah, in order for us to send
an animal home, because we needto make sure that everyone agrees that this
is a pet that you want.Because what happens is people adopt pets for
the holidays and they surprise their spouseor their significant other and that person really
didn't want the pet, and thenthe pet ends up going back. And

(10:16):
the other thing is that, likewe saw with COVID people, when you
get a dog, particularly a dog, it has to be cared for.
It has to be walked every day, it has to be fed every day.
Sometimes they're you know, saucy,and they need training. Sometimes they
pee and poop in your house.Sometimes they tear up your stuff because they're

(10:37):
bored at home. It's all ofthis stuff, So you have to imagine
that it's not just you're gonna havethis cute little puppy for the two weeks
that you're home over Christmas break.You're that's a dog that's gonna need to
be cared for and it's going todo things that are annoying to you.
So I highly, highly highly discourageadopting pets for the holiday because you're not

(11:01):
in your right mind. If youreally want a pet and you want to
give that to somebody, go liketake them to the shelter, so you
know, say hey, we're thisis a surprise. We're gonna go look
for dogs together, and then youcan decide on what's good for you.
Good PSA thank you because our sheltersor Amelia, the big feel good story

(11:24):
of COVID was our shelters got emptied. But the story no one talked about
because my family and our dog fosters, the story no one talked about is
that those shelters got filled right backup as soon as we started going back
to life. And there now there'sa surplus of dogs, and a lot
of these shelters have had to putdown a lot of dogs because they can't

(11:45):
accommodate them, where fosters are takingas many as possible, but we don't
even have enough fosters to take allthe dogs that are overflowing from the shelters.
So that guy, yeah, she'llbe abot at people. Yeah,
um, all right, anyways,I'm a lighter note back to Taylor.
He's sitting in his fancy gaming chairand he's giving dating advice to like a

(12:07):
twelve year old that he's like streaminga game with IM. I know,
I'm saying all the gaming words wrong, but he's also something and he's like
live gaming with this kid and beinglike you can't tell her you like her
or whatever. So I thought thatI thought that was kind of funny too.
But then his mom calls him andit's like, um, and it's
like a phone call with your mom. You know, she keeps she's trying

(12:28):
to face she doesn't realize she's facetiming and holding it on her ear,
and you know, all the littlejokes like that. Um, so he
just goes upstairs to talk to herbecause it turns out. He lives in
the Taylor both live at home.We know now. This gave me um,
This tickled me so much. Andthen in my notes I just wrote
that. I wrote like, oh, this guy is so single, and

(12:52):
you know he's so single because Itook I started taking inventory of what was
in his space. So in onjust a table that was behind him in
his little basement apartment. On thattable alone, there's a couple of curtains
of old Chinese food. There wasbeer. I hang on, I wrote

(13:13):
this down. There was beer.There's a foosball table, there was a
VR headset, a couple of bottlesof full soda and some trash and a
piece of box. So this guyis so single. He is mother's basement
takeout single. Yeah, that's sosingle. He is all right. So

(13:35):
he's talking to his mom and itis only six days till Christmas. She
wants to get things moving along,which I mean six days till Christmas.
Thanksgiving us tomorrow Friday. Christmas startsaround here. The decorations are up,
so I mean, yeah, sixdays. They don't have any decorations on
the outside of the house. Atree outside isn't decorated. That's bold.

(13:58):
It is so now stuff and showsup and it turns out that he lives
in the guest had guess half yard, because everybody's got a guesthouse, but
Amelia, I literally wrote in mynotes, I look like I literally wrote
this in my notes, like everyonehas a guest house except Amelia. Tragic.

(14:18):
Tragic. So Stephan lives in theguesthouse, Taylor lives in the basement,
and Luke appears to have a bedroomupstairs, so everybody is living there.
Um. So back to Luke,he is at the fire station and
the people are talking to him.He is remodeling, refurbishing whatever, getting
a house right to move into.Um and it's been taking forever. So

(14:39):
that's why he is living with hismom currently. I don't think you get
a similar explanation about the other two. They just live with their mom.
Well, we know that Stefan isanxious, he doesn't want to be too
far from his mom, and thenwe also know that Taylor's immature from his
mom's. Yeah. Um so thenwe had another moment that kind of made
me laugh where and Stephen are arguingat the table and he's like, you're

(15:03):
a pet detective, and he's likeI'm not a pet detective, I'm pet
therapist. And he goes, well, alrighty then, and I think that
it did make me laugh. Therewas some good banter at the table,
there was yea. And it wasat this moment that I realized his name
was Stephen, and I wrote down, Oh, Stephen. I guess I've
been calling him Stephen until now.I feel like there were more jokes about

(15:24):
Stephen Stephen that maybe ended up onthe cutting room floor, Yeah, because
there were a couple. Yeah,there were a couple comments about that earlier,
like when the when the dog momcame over and she was like,
Hi, is Stephen or is itStephen? And they never actually answered it
until this moment. So Stephen.I assumed it was Stephen the way she
said it, and I assumed theywere setting up a row of jokes a

(15:50):
bit, yeah, yeah, abit that never really came back. So
I'm gonna guess that some stuff endedup on the cutting room floor. Stephen
versus Stephen is an odd choice fora character name if you're not going to
explore that, but right it isall right. So the mom's deal is
that she wants with everybody's under thesame roof this year. Luke's house is

(16:11):
going to be done by next Christmas. She wants one more Christmas where everyone
is together, so that's what shewants. Aunt Louise is coming. She
wants one big family Christmas. Allright, Taylor is or sorry. Luke
is at the fire station doing yogabecause he is mindful. He was doing
affnations earlier. Now he's doing yogaand he hears the doorbell. It's a

(16:33):
baby. I mean, it's nota baby that ring the doorbell, but
someone loves a baby. We don'tknow, because we actually don't know that.
I have no idea that's true.Yeah, they didn't document that part,
so but yeah, it's a babysitting in a baby seat in the
fire station and Luke sort of comesout, Oh surprise, little baby there.
Yeah, and there's just a noteon it, Luke, take care

(16:55):
of Thomas. Be back by Christmas. Okay. Yeah. Um. And
in a lot of states, afire station is a safe place. I
mean, I assume it's a safeplace in most places, but it's like
officially designated a safe place to believea baby. If you feel overwhelmed and
you can't take care of your babyand you feel like you might do something
dangerous, just go leave the babyat the fire station. You can you

(17:18):
can leave your baby at the firestation, you can leave your baby at
the library, and you can leaveyour baby at a hospital obviously, but
those are actually um legal places foryou to without you know, um repercussions
if you if you rather than youdo something deathbreat And in many states they

(17:40):
have little at fire stations. Theyhave the little cute little baby drop off
boxes so your baby doesn't have tobe out in the cold. It's like
boxes at the library. It's justlike the return slats right, no rolling
in. There's something adorable about it, even though the whole process seems very
sad, there's something very but it'slike they're safe places. Yes, these

(18:03):
days it seems like everybody's talking,but no one is actually listening to the
things they're saying. Critical thinking isn'tdead, but it's definitely low on oxygen.
Join me Kira Davis on just listento yourself every week as we reason
through issues big and small, critiqueour own ideas, and learn to draw
our talking points all the way outto their logical conclusions. Subscribe to just

(18:26):
Listen to Yourself with Kira Davis anFCB radio podcasts on Apple, on Spotify,
iHeart, or wherever you get yourpodcasts. So he is like,
this is not my baby. Ididn't father this baby, obviously, because
people don't just go around accidentally fatheringbabies, and Hallmark I was highly,
highly highly uncomfortable with all of thetalk about whether or not Luke was a

(18:49):
father of this baby. Now wasmuted quite a bit. You know,
they could have gone further with it. But my first thought was like,
Okay, someone left Luca baby.Are we all going to pretend isn't his
baby? And then when people startedasking about it being his baby, I
was like, this is really borderlinebecause now we're imagining Loke having sex and

(19:11):
we've already seen him half naked.Yeah, yeah, do you see where
this slippery slope goes? Slope isslippery? And speaking of slippery slopes,
he decides that he's not going tocall child services. He's like, he
said it's it's he says, it'stoo late. I don't know. That's
the thing. Now, I thinkyou can call child services anytime you need

(19:33):
some help. Yeah, I don'tknow. We have a mutual friend Brittany
who is a foster mom, andshe posts all the time about getting calls
in the middle of the night andgetting a teenager or baby dropped off on
our doorstep by CPS, like liketroubled relationships. Don't wait for the day
hours, not a nine to five, right government organization. They're not closed

(19:56):
for holiday mondays or whatever. Heyou can call CPS. But he's like,
it's too late. But I meanhe did the right thing, because
you don't want to get if thatlady said she was going to be back
by Christmas, yes, Which remindsme of another thing that a lot of
states have which is great, whichis the Safe Families for Children programs,
which is a private alternative to CPSwhere when you need help, you can

(20:19):
ask for it through this you know, Safe Families program. There are families
ready to help you. Whether itbe like this this woman just needed a
few days, we'll find out laterwhat the story is. Or some people
do it so they can, youknow, find a job, or because
they need to find a place tolive before they become homeless, or they
need to go to rehab or something, and that way they don't get in

(20:40):
a super desperate situation where CPS actuallytakes their kids. So it's a great
program, safe families. We haveit in our church and you'll find it
in a lot of churches, andit is a private version of the CPS
program, And knowing people who workin CPS, I really do think that
it's it's actually the best thing todo to avoid CPS at all costs if

(21:02):
you can. So I'm with Lukeon this one. I'm glad he didn't
call CPS because sometimes you're putting akid into a worse situation. And yeah,
absolutely, so family does better.So he takes baby Thomas home to
his mother, who was delighted tohave a baby to play with. So
sure, Thomas is in a greatsituation here. Um, so he's like,

(21:22):
we're gonna bring the baby home forthe night. The mom agrees this
was an active desperation, so wedon't need to call CPS. Okay,
However, it's the morning now andmom gets a call from Louise that Louise
has fallen and she can't get up. I knew it. I knew it.
At the second they mentioned Aunt Louise, I was like, oh,

(21:44):
they might alow said Aunt Louise isfive days from retirement. Like, something's
gonna happen to Aunt Louise Um becausethey mentioned her name. So this is
totally on mom. This is herfault. She jinks to Aunt Louise Um,
so whatever happens to Aunt Louise ison mom. Shelf it it is
sorry Mom, not sorry Mom,you did this. No, this is
your fault, you mention. Soshe leaves to go take care of Louise

(22:07):
to check on her. Um.She's like, I'll be back tomorrow.
You guys are fine. Your threegrown men, you can handle a baby.
But Luke has work and so doesStephen. But Taylor is unemployed.
So Taylor gets the first shift withbaby Thomas. Now we get to three
men finally get into three men ina baby. Um. So Taylor first

(22:30):
is trying to figure out what baby'slike, and he's like doing magic tricks
and he's doing all this stuff andyou know this, I'm trying to think.
So Thomas, I'm thinking he's likeseven ish months old. I mean
he's like, he's not like anewborn. Yeah, I would say five
or six months old or six monthsOkay, it wasn't eating solid still.

(22:51):
Um. Oh, and you knowwhat Amelia. I actually, now that
I think about it later on whichwe'll get to, I do believe the
mom said something like, oh,five months ago or something like that when
she was talking about when she hadthe baby. So I'm gonna guess five
months. We're gonna say he's fivemonths old. So I mean, really,
five month old babies, you know, they don't like much. They

(23:14):
don't do a lot um, Sohe doesn't really need to do that much
entertaining, like you know, makessome faces, make some noises, show
him something bright. He's happy.But here's the problem. He does need
to eat a lot and Taylor dropsthe formula, and now he has to
go to the store. His uberdoesn't show up, so he has to
He spends fifty bucks to get awagon off with some kid and goes through

(23:38):
ghost heads off to the store.Yeah. I was trying to imagine the
car seat in the wagon, whichwas quite a shallow wagon. And then
I was trying to buy the waybudding capitalists there and that child Amelia,
Yes, yes, they had hehad. The kid had the wagon because

(24:00):
she was selling what was it Christmascookies or something. She was selling something
with the wagon, and then shewas like, if you want the wagon
itself, it's fifty bucks. Yeah. Yeah. It was the girl scout
cookies. Yeah, and then yeahyeah, and he was like, how
about you know, lending me thewagon and she's like, yeah, fifty
bucks. Um. So I justwanted to point that out because, um,

(24:22):
Hallmark, I think has a biasagainst their capitalist characters, and we
are we're pro capitalist characters here.Yeah. I mean I guess that that
kid is a distant relative relative ofRobert Baron Baron obviously. Yeah. Anyway,
then I was picturing him dragging thethe wagon in the streets like in

(24:48):
it made me highly uncomfortable as whatI'm saying. Yeah, it was,
it was, it was. Itwas a choice anyway. Um, so
let's see where we know, ohLuke is gonna be is working at some
event to raise money for like thefamilies of fallen firemen. There's a dinner
coming up, there's going to belike an option where you can win a

(25:08):
date with one of the firemen.Whatever. Taylor is at the store.
He runs into a girl and there'sthis cute thing about like, I mean,
I think he thinks it's cute.Where he's trying to figure out he
doesn't know how old the baby is, he doesn't know what he needs,
and he buys like everything but doesnot have his wallet, so he has

(25:29):
to leave his watch at the storefor collateral. Yeah, you know,
I'll say this. I live ina cute, cozy little suburb here in
Orange County, California, and thathas actually happened to me. I have
been to the grocery store before ApplePay. Right now, I have my
phone, can just scan that.But men to the grocery store scanned everything

(25:51):
and then realize I have forgot mywallet, and you know what, our
managers like, go home and getyour wallet. We'll wait here if it's
like you're if you're nearby. Yeah, so it does happen. Um,
I feel like maybe the grocery storeclerk could have given him a break.

(26:11):
Did he need to leave the watch? Obviously he's got a baby there and
he's overwhelmed, but he loved thewatch for collateral Anyways, he could have
just used Apple Pay he had hiswatch on. I know, Okay,
that's what I thought was gonna happen, because't not what happened. But I
don't think that um. Apple hasgotten into the Hallmark universe. It could
have just been like digital pay youknow whatever. People have one too,

(26:36):
But anyway, whatever, right,um Stephen is at back at the dog
Mom's house and he opens and there'slike just a really brief, weird scene
and then he's back home. Heopens the fridge and I loved this.
There's this giant Daisy sour cream yescenter in the fridge. I love the
blatant product placement. Also, Ienjoy a Daisy product the best. How

(27:00):
jeez, I hollered, Yeah,I hollered out loud. I was like,
oh, there it is. I'mlike, and then if they and
then the next commercial was Daisy andso it was like, yes, I
loved it. By the way,you you didn't mention um I. When
Stefan goes to the dog Mom's house, yeah, he sees all these costumes

(27:23):
that she is working on and itturns out she's a seamstress and the name
of her company is so Sue Me. Her name's Sue, right, So
the name of the company is soSue Me sw Yeah, And I just
had all kinds of problems with thename of that company. First of all,
it's a long way to go fora pun I love a good pun.

(27:45):
But it was a long, itwas a stretch. And the other
thing is I don't think that's goodbusiness. I mean, you shouldn't who
I don't think it's good business toname your company is something that encourages people
to sue you. Yeah. Um, But what I appreciated was that that
actress is named Fiona room vro oo M. And I liked it.

(28:07):
I liked it. Do you thinkthat's a real name? Yeah, I
don't. I mean that's awesome ifit is. I don't know. Um,
And the the the ex Taylor's exgirlfriend is named Fiona. The characters
named Fiona. So there's just there'sa lot of overlap here. There's a
lot going on interesting and Taylor isplayed by Tyler. There's just there's a
lot happening. I wonder. Um, so we're gonna find out. We're

(28:30):
going to talk about who wrote thismovie as we get towards the end,
and that might have something to dowith why there's all this crossover. Yeah,
I actually don't know. It's gonnabe fun for me, you don't
know. I didn't excited. Yes, you should be a girl, and
it's everything's gonna fall into place whenyou find out. Okay, yep,
um, all right. So basicallyTaylor is traumatized from spending two hours with

(28:55):
this baby. Yes, well itfair enough. I have had two babies
myself, and both the earth.Yes, very traumatizing experiences, even for
just a couple hours. Yeah.So he gives a baby to Stephen and
he's like, I need to goget my watch back and pay for the
groceries. Stephen is like, ohmy gosh, you're so ridiculous. We'll
be fine. We're gonna make somecookies. And of course it doesn't go

(29:15):
well. And by the time Taylorgets home, they're all covered in flour
and the cookies are burned. Andhow does Stephen get flour all over him?
I don't know. The baby don'tmake cookies. I was gonna say
the kid was older. I cansee like grabbing handfulls, you know,
but this baby wasn't old enough forthat. I don't know. I don't
know, I know, I don'tknow what happened, but I feel this

(29:36):
is a failure on Stephan's part,not necessarily the baby's fault. I mean,
you put the baby in the sea. It's five months old. A
kid even crawl, put the babyin the sea, or stick it on
a playpen or a blanket. Mixup your ingredients and bake. But Stephen
couldn't even manage that this baby.There might be a lot more going on
with the baby than the movie wouldallow us to see it. It might

(29:59):
have s powers, it might haveYeah, I mean, this baby seemed
to be quite the challenge for thesegentlemen. That's a really good point.
Um. So they give the baby, Steffen and Taylor give the baby a
bath together. Um, and theystart talking about how their dad left them
at Christmas time. Didn't like it? M Nope. I didn't like it

(30:21):
either. Nope, didn't like it. I thought this movie is really skirting
the line here. Um. Iwas ready to accept that dad was dead.
That's an acceptable way to leave yourfamily in the Hallmark universe, and
even divorced, yeah yeah, evendivorced and popping up. But to but
to have this tragic story where thedad just abandoned the family three boys us,

(30:45):
Yeah, I didn't like it.I didn't either. I didn't either.
That was one of those I waslike, Hallwork is just different this
year. Yep, yep. Soanyway, Taylor and Stefan. They're gonna
go back to the store and buylike more equal whitman, they're gonna have
this before I think we're at fourdays now because she said she'll be back
before Christmas. And they buy likea baby swing and a front carrier,

(31:08):
and they buy all of the things. They buy all of the things.
They don't leave anything there, whichactually it's true to life. When you're
a first time parent, you dobuy all of the things. You buy
the expensive diapers, you buy,the swings, the you know, the
you're just babysitting for four days.I don't think you do that. But

(31:29):
they don't know. It's my point. They don't understand. They're like,
what if I need this? Whatif I need that? Once you get
into the baby having thing, youknow, like my second baby didn't even
have a her own room. Ijust put a crib in the guest room.
I was like, well, I'mnot going to decorate this room for
a baby. She's just going tosleep in her so and I need the
guest rooms, So put a bedin the guest room. And it's a

(31:55):
third child, I feel that deeply. Imagine what your next one would have
been like, No, um sothey decided to make like a cute little
footprint ornament of the baby at thestore. And then Taylor runs into Fiona,
his ex from work, and wefind out that she dumped him.
We don't know why yet. Imean, he's a man child. Yes,

(32:17):
he's a man child. He hasold Chinese food cartins. Like she
was so good for you. Ican't believe you let her go, and
he's like, yeah, I didn't. Yeah, so yeah, she obviously
dumped him because he's a Yeah,he's a man baby. Um, all
right, when they get back home, Um, Louise or the mom calls

(32:42):
to say that Louise actually has aconcussion, so she's gonna have to stay
the whole night. Yeah, itwas just gonna be the afternoon, but
she's gonna go ahead and stay thenight now to take care of Louise.
And they are we know, weknow Louise has a concussion because she has
an old, one of those oldtimy ice packs on her head. Now,
Amelia, you have suffered a concussionbefore. Did you have old tiny

(33:04):
ice packs available for your head?I mean, I mean I assume there
was one available at some point.I did not need there was not one.
In use. You didn't use themfor your concussion. No, I'm
pretty sure that an ice pack woulddo nothing. Okay, that's what I
thought, except make you cold.Get cold. That seems like it's even
worse. Um, all right,now we're having another deep discussion. The

(33:27):
brothers are trying to put baby stufftogether, and there are a couple of
jokes about how the instructions are impossibleto read, which I get. Let
they talk about how when their dadleft, all three of the brothers kind
of closed off from each other.And I didn't like it. Again,
I was too it was too deepinto traumatizing, like even when like the
Royal Nanny, Okay, she talksabout being a foster kid, but it's

(33:50):
not like a sad thing or theyHallmark go, they went to great links
for her to be like, I'mnot sad about it, Like it wasn't
a bad life and say, Iremember there there's one movie with Candice Cameron
Beret where she is adopted and shegoes back to her old hometown and she
talks to she meets precocious child andwho's also a foster kid, and and

(34:13):
she talks about being lonely without afamily, but there is always this edge
of hope to it that is like, yeah, you don't want to have
to imagine your Hallmark protagonists sad andin agony as children. They're just that
doesn't exist in the Hallmark universe.And they're talking about like how it's traumatized
them. So they're different growing upand you know, yeah, Luke talked

(34:34):
about having to be responsible for everybody. I want to hear Christmas play I
fixed your sled. I did thisand it was it was moving, but
it was just a lot for homework. It's too much, which you know,
the more like emotional stories are usuallyon homework. Movies and mysteries they
do miracles of Christmas instead of countingdown to Christmas. And I felt like

(34:55):
in some of those moments they couldn'treally decide what channel they're making this for.
Was it like the comedy or wasit like the serious thing? There
was a lot so now they realizedthe baby has fallen asleep, and they're
like, oh, my goodness,he's finally asleep. I've been trying to
get him to sleep all day.Did this baby not take a nap all
day? That's not possible, Likeeven if even if they weren't able to

(35:19):
get him down for a nap.He would have just fallen asleep. He's
five months old. Yeah, no, they drift off. I mean there
may be awake for two hours ata time at that right. I don't
believe you that this baby was awakeall day. Yeah. So Luke gets
home, he's like, why areyou guys acting crazy? He takes the
baby and goes, it's just ababy, and I was like, oh,
that's going to come back to gethim. So we see him the
next morning. He's in the kitchen. He made cookies, he worked out,

(35:44):
he's doing great with the baby.He's mister mom. Everything's great,
and the brothers cannot believe their eyesthat he's this is like so easy and
natural for him. But he's parthe's mister January. Yes, he's mister
January. So Stephen is now backwith the dog lady who we know is
named Susie now after the Sioux joke, and they see the the Humane Society

(36:07):
or the animal rescue guy again andhe's like, oh my goodness, this
guy's gonna ask me to do atalk. I can't do talks. I
don't like people. So he triesto hide again, but the guy sees
him and Susie like steps up andrescues him, and it's really cute.
She likes distracts the guy and letsstuff and get away, which was kind
of sweet. Yeah. Um.Meanwhile, Luke has a baby strapped to
him. He's at the building siteand the guy's talk and the foreman again

(36:29):
is like, oh, you havea baby, and he's like, I'm
not the father of this baby.And um. But so his whole thing
was like, you're you have thisbig, beautiful house. I thought it
was just going to be you.I'm so happy to see you have a
family. You're gonna have all thesememories. This house, it's gonna fill
right up. And Luke has kindof a sadness in his face because he
knows that because it's been well establishedthat baby isn't his. And yeah,

(36:52):
and now he's gonna be away fromhis family. I mean, Luke is
he comes off as mister independent,mister responsible, but at the end of
the day, this is a familywith a lot of codependency issues and they're
not going to go away overnight.They're not. They did Paul Revere really

(37:13):
say the British are coming and howis George Washington chosen to leave the first
American Army. Join us for theGrowing Patriot podcast, a place for curious
kids to ask the big questions aboutour nation's history and get kid friendly answers
from the country's top experts. Helpyour child learn about and cherish America's exceptional
history. Subscribe to Growing Patriots onApple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts

(37:36):
today. Taylor, meanwhile, isday drinking at a restaurant that had like
a table was just like it wasa barrel with a piece of glass on
it, so you know, it'sal's a place to drink. So he's
talking to his friend and he basicallyis asking this guy for a job at
his gaming company, and his friendis like, says, you are a
wrecking ball, so he won't hirehim, which, you know, yeah,

(38:00):
fair enough. He appears to bea wrecking ball. Yeah, no,
it's obvious he's a wrecking ball.I mean he's sour, he's he's
cocky, he's sarcastic, he's rude, he thinks he's better than everybody,
and he lives in his mom's basement. So there's just a lot of red

(38:22):
flags with Taylor I can't imagine.He must be a really great programmer,
though I guess must be really reallygood. Yeah, Luke is still nailing
his day with the baby. Sohe's gathering presents, you know for this
kid's Fireman's Kids charity thing that heworks with, and he goes to drop
off the presence and he thinks he'sdoing great, drops off the presence and

(38:47):
then at and that, so atthe commercial. So there's a commercial break
and we're like, what's going tohappen. Turns out that's not the right
baby. He there's Aye, there'sa baby switcher root. He picked up
somebody else's baby when he was droppingoff the presents, which means someone else
has his baby. So the carrotthat car seats were covered. You know,

(39:10):
sometimes you throw your blanket over thebaby to protect them from the wind.
Yeah, so they have matching blankets. It's just reminded me of these
the episode of The Cosby Show wheredoctor Huxtable takes Rudy out um and comes
during winter, takes her out skatingor something comes back, peels off all

(39:31):
the layers of her SnO due andit's not Rudy, and and insanity ensues
for The rest of the episode remindedme of that, well this got this
got solved in five minutes because thepolice bring him Thomas. And I'm really
confused about this because how did theyknow to call Luke for this baby?

(39:57):
Where did did they just the theother people bring the baby to the police.
Why didn't they just take it toLuke they knew who he was.
You think they would have gone,oh, obviously, Luke, switch babies.
We're just gonna go to the firestation and switch them back. They
brought the police. I don't knowhow the police knew to bring the baby
to Luke. I don't know whythey weren't like this, you keep saying,

(40:20):
this isn't your baby, so whywould we give you. I know,
I'm imagining that in their town thatthe police and fire departments are about
the same size. It's a prettysmall police and fire department. And I
bet everybody knows Luke, and everybodyknew that Luke had this baby that is
definitely not his, but that he'staking care of for five days until Christmas.
So yeah, I'm gonna guess thatthe police guys are you know,

(40:45):
they whatever at the local law enforcementor service member's bar after work. Everyone's
talking about Luke and this baby andhow, of course it's not Luke's baby.
Would not be that irresponsible to inseminatea woman and then leave for pregnant.
You can't say that, you can'tsay that word. I'm sorry,

(41:07):
not okay, Darby's gonna have toslap an explicit warning on this episode.
So Taylor and Luke end up gettinginto a fight. They're shoving each other,
they break some chotchkey of their moms, and but then Mom faced time,
so they have to pretend everything istotally fine. Everything's totally fine,
But now Mom is snowed in withAunt Louise, so who knows when she's

(41:31):
going to get home. It's notgoing to be today. But it's crazy
that, you know, it couldhave been one or the other. I'm
just going to go pick up AuntLouise and I got snowed in, or
I'm going to pick up Aunt Louiseand she's got a concussion now, so
we have to just stay still forfive days. I mean, for Heaven's

(41:51):
sake, we made Faye lay downfor six weeks because she twisted her ankle
strained and I'm here, yeah,I know, I didn't even got another
podcast partner. Well, I waitedfor you to get your life back.
But um the idea that, ohnow she's snowed in two a lot.
It's a lot. Anyways. Theboy is Mom can't get home take care

(42:15):
of this baby. These three incompetentbrothers, one who almost you know,
one who lost the baby. That'svery serious. And he's the responsible one.
He's a responsible one, one wholost the baby. They're gonna have
to care for the baby a fewdays more. I'm not more days,
I think if I find out thetimeline right, which I might not.

(42:36):
Um. So Stephan is like,listen, we're gonna have to be all
hands on deck tomorrow or until momgets home. The three of us are
all in this together. Now herewe go. So the next day they
decided to go ice skating, andI'm like, that makes sense because Luke
at least is aggressively Canadian looking.Yes, I so the other two probably
are because their homemark and oh no, Luke and Paul are for shore Canadian.

(43:00):
Yeah yeah, Paul Campbell is avery Canadian name. Okay, accept
that. Um, So they decidedto go skating and Taylor runs into Fiona
his ex girlfriend again, and thenhe gives her his mittens because he wasn't
She wasn't going to go skating becauseshe didn't have her mittens, which I
never I grew up on the ice. You grew up in Canada. I've

(43:22):
never heard of such a thing.She took her niece all the way down
to the rink and then was goingto be like, oh, sorry,
I forgot my mittens. Like,and it's an indoor rink, it's not
even outside those He's like, areyou going skating? She's like, oh,
I forgot my gloves. Why?I don't know. You can your
beat still functioning about them? Yeah, it's fine. And then there's no,

(43:42):
there's nothing indicating that they skated,so excuse me, So giving away
his gloves did that mean that theycouldn't skate now? Right? Right?
What were they going to do withthe baby? Were they going to skate
with the baby? I that's verydangerous because there's blades on the ice.
One falls, that baby tips overnext year. I know my parents always

(44:04):
skated with us. They just andobviously these guys are Canadian, so they
can know how I get. Ican't remember. I mean, every little
kid skates with the chair. Weused have chairs on the ice and you
yeah, we said, old oldtimey school dust chairs. Yeah. And
they have little skates with double blades. Huh yeah, like yeah, we

(44:25):
never did. The double blades.That was for like those were the double
blades were for the kids that hadto wear helmets full time. You know
what I mean, I get it. Yeah. Um, So apparently they
didn't skate either, I don't know. But then as they're leaving this small
or whatever it is, Christmas marketor some baby yeah bryding me of maybe

(44:46):
like Bryant Park in New York orsomething where it's just the Christmas stalls Christmas
yeah, um, and they're like, oh, remember when we were kids,
we visited Santa. Sorry ya,So we're visiting and we visited Santa
and mom loved it. We shouldget another picture with Santa. Suddenly they're
all dressed as elves getting a picturetaken with Santa. So I've never I

(45:08):
never put on a costume to dressup with Santa. I did not know
adult costumes would have been available.Anyway, they went and bought them.
You may have blinked at that part, but Luke saw a vendor that was
selling. Oh I didn't see yesyou may. Yeah. He saw a
vendor and he was like, doyou have adult sizes? It was like
Christmas onesies or something like that.I don't know how I'm said, okay,

(45:30):
yeah, do you have? Itwas blinking you Matt Sam and he
was like, do you have adultsizes? And then boom, slow motion
walked towards Santa. The boys andthe baby are going to get their pictures
taken. I thought it was supercute. I was cute. It was
cute, but the way they talkedabout their mom loving their previous you know,
Santa picture made it sound like they'donly ever gotten one. So they

(45:52):
go visit Santa now tonight. Thatnight they all like throw sleeping bags on
the floor, blankets on the floor. They're sleeping. They're camping out in
the living room together, which seemedlike, I guess that we want all
hands on deck. But it seemedlike a lot to me. Yeah,
that's a lot for a baby.Um. Frankly, that's too many men
in one room to make noise whilebabies sleeping at night. But it was

(46:14):
cute because they just wanted to betogether, right, they're supporting together yeah,
we we have totally skipped over theircocky neighbor with the truck. Yes,
I'm about to get to him.Okay, we can start with him
now though. Okay, Um,we're about to get there. So in
the morning, they are arguing aboutwhether or not you have to boil the

(46:37):
baby's stuff to like sanitize it beforeyou give it back. So, Kia,
as a mom, did you boilthe stuff? Yes? Okay,
oh it was part excuse me,that was a part I hated the most.
But yeah, always boiled the stuff. All right, there you go.
You heard it here first. Um, they're kind of starting. So
now they're talking about how great theirmom was and like we did not appreciate

(46:59):
it enough. She had three sonsto deal with, you know, Dad,
as we know, left us.But they're they're having a little moment
about that. They decide to goget a Christmas tree and stuff, and
it's like, you can't. Youcan't get a pine You need a fir
tree. And he's right about that, and I would like to take a
moment to appreciate how right he isabout that. You gotta get a fir

(47:19):
tree. Yeah, the pine treesare not going to hold your ornaments right.
Their branches are weak. They're justpine trees you might see in a
movie or something. Someone hasn't puta lot of thought into it. We
made the mistake one year, Ameliaof buying a pine tree, not totally
understanding the difference. I think Idon't even remember why we did it.
I think we were like, oh, this will be a different looking tree.

(47:43):
Anyways, it was terrible. Itwas it wouldn't hold the ornaments.
Hated it. Yeah, you needa fur always go with the fir tree.
Fir people. So, like amillion years ago, when I was
right out of college, I workedwith this couple, the husband and wife
both both worked there, and theydecide, when you're they were going to
get a deciduous tree for Christmas andbe crazy and different. So they went

(48:05):
to like a local florist or somethingand they were like, find us a
deciduous tree for Christmas. The floristdelivers them a poison oak and they were
like why we have we have kids, Like why would you? Why would
you? He's like it looks cool, you can hang ornaments on it.
They were like, we don't know, we don't want wow in the box.

(48:28):
I just kept thinking like, hey, it could be worse than a
pine tree. Yeah, it couldbe worse than a pine tree. But
see, that's why you don't getfancy. Keep it simple, folks,
keep it simple. Get a firtree. Um. All right. So
now, so we've seen this neighborbefore, but I didn't realize he was
going to be like a thing untilthis moment. They're weird. Neighbor Mark
who I don't know if your Markappreciated this, but his name's Mark.

(48:52):
Yeah, so the neighbor he keepslike talking. So we saw him before
when Taylor was coming home from gettingfired and he was like, you don't
have any lights in your house?He's like, nice lights, just kidding,
you don't have any? Like hisburns are terrible, Yeah, they're
terrible, or what he said somethingabout him walking walking. He was like,
oh, I see someone lost theirsleigh or something. It was like

(49:12):
the dumbest thing. And we knowthat Mark is a big old jerk because
he drives a big old truck,big old pickup truck. And Taylor has
a comment about that too, thatMark's too dumb even again because he the
guy who has a pickup truck.Yeah, it definitely it was a burn
about the low self esteem and yeah, big Chuck's overcompensating for smaller things again

(49:32):
something that didn't really belong in theHallmark. Yeah, but the neighbor is
talking about how the town does afestive house contest and he always wins,
and he's gonna win this year.And he's like, you guys aren't even
trying. You're no competition. Andthen they show Mark's house and it looked
pretty average to me. He hadsome lights up, get some inflatables in

(49:53):
the yard. It did not looklike something that was going to win a
competition. To me. This isalways the case with the Hallmark house decorating.
I've actually never seen Christmas house inHallmark that deserved the best of Decorating
Contest title. That being said,decorating homes with lights for Christmas is a

(50:16):
big deal. And Hallmark makes likeone hundred movies a year, so I'll
let them slide on this one,all right, all right? Yeah,
Now we've got like Fiona shows upat the house, and Susie, the
dog mom that Steffan's working with,also shows up. She shows up with

(50:37):
a casserole, and Fiona shows upand she knows how to do the programming
to make like dancing lights go withlike a sound show kind of thing,
so which I thought was like,this is very presumptuous because you have to
have first of all, you haveto have lights that do that, right.
So she was like, oh,I'll just do some some twenty I'm

(50:58):
rewatching twenty four announced, I'll justdo some CHLOEA. Brian stuff. And
they're like type, oh, lookthe lights. Yeah, and she had
the marble covered laptop again. Inoticed, Oh, this is why he
couldn't pay with Apple pay at thestore. They don't have Apple in the
Hallmark universe. I still think hecould have been like, I'll pay with
my watch. I don't know,or he could like I'll pay with my

(51:21):
um, what's their uh, what'stheir brand? Their balm, their balmy
the Hill, Balsom Hill, Well, can I use my Balsom Hill out
awesome Bucks? Exactly. It's gottabe a way to get it done.
Um. So they're all hanging arounddecorating. It's all cute, and then

(51:42):
Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies song comeson and the these three grown men get
up and do a choreograph dance toit. There's really there's no explanation as
to why they know this dance.They just said that it was like a
thing that they learned when they wereyounger. We don't know why, but
they got up and did it.But you know what, they were really
good. And I heartily approve ofit. Of an impromptu goofy dancing done

(52:09):
by hot guys. I love that. Enjoyed it. The girls enjoyed.
I enjoyed it too. I enjoyedit too. I actually I actually laughed.
There we go. Yeah, um, all right. So now Luke
is back at the fire station.The auction is tonight, so he's got
stuff to do, and this kidcomes by. He's maybe like eight or

(52:30):
ten, um, he lost hisdad in a fire, and they have
this major heart to heart moment,which again I thought was a little too
serious. And then Luke goes homeand yet no, wait, but no,
but it was too serious. Likethe kid said, I don't like
my mom's new boyfriend, and Idon't want to spend Christmas with him,

(52:52):
And I was just like, yeah, yeah, of course he doesn't like
his mom's new boyfriend. And what'sthe mom what's the new boy from trying
to do anyways, he's trying tobe the dead Like. It made me
have to go think about all ofthese scenarios for this kid. I don't
want to know that there are kidswho are who are really suffering because of
divorce or loss of a parent inthe Hallmark universe, and then they have

(53:15):
a parent who is rude enough tobring in someone new that the kid doesn't
like. I don't want to bethinking about all of that. I want
the kid to be enjoying Christmas withtheir new stepdad. Well, he decides
he's going to give the guy achance after they're big talks, so they're
probably gonna bond and be super happynow. But also the mom shouldn't have

(53:37):
a boyfriend, you have a fiance, or you're single. That's it,
a Hallmark. Those are your options. Those are your options, a Hallmark.
I'm sorry. So okay, Soluke Go's homemade this big blowout fight
with the brothers where he talks about, like you were saying that he basically
had to raise them, you know, or be the father figure, like

(54:00):
I packed the lunches, I helphim with everything. I did this,
and then you know, Stephen islike, well I just you know ended
up with crippling anxiety, and Taylor'slike, and I don't do responsibility,
and they all just they get inthis huge blo out fight and they all
leave, leave stuff and with thebaby, and he is changing the baby's
diaper, undoes this onesie which theybought the wrong onesies if you have to

(54:21):
undo it all the way to thebaby's chest to change a diaper. But
I digress. He sees a rashon the baby's chest, flips out.
Okay, So meanwhile Taylor is goingto see Fiona and he's like, yeah,
we're not going to do the lights, forget it, blah blah,
just be in his usual self becausehe always just leaves when things get good.

(54:43):
Yeah that's what he does. Yeah, that's what he does. He
runs away, runs away. Hecan't accept that things might be okay.
If things start to look okay,he just runs. It's a thick.
So meanwhile Luke is getting an awardfor being such a stand up perfect guy.
They both get calls from Stephen andrun to the hospital. And I
will also say I didn't even seethe rash on the baby's chest, like

(55:06):
I believe that it was there stuffand said it was there, but it
was just it was minimal. Itwas minimal. It was red and mostly
look like someone just put a handon his chest and he was having an
allergic reaction to the hand. ButI do know what it is like to
have a baby. You don't knowwhat you're doing and you panic easily.
I mean with my first child,I can remember changing his diaper ones and

(55:30):
like seeing a like a boil orlike a blister on his little baby peepee,
and I was like freaking out,you know, and it was like
a blister. I'm like, ohmy god, this is not good.
Freaked out, like called the pediatrician. Of course I was raising kids in
the hood, so the hood pediatrician. That's like six hour wait because you're

(55:52):
waiting in line with it's not Ihad insurance, but like most people don't.
Well you're just waiting in Lyne withall all of these people who are
coming through for even the tiniest things. Anyways, she did see me,
but I had to wait between pornsix hours, got in there. Finally
with my baby. She takes astaper off. She starts to touch it

(56:15):
because every time I would touch it, he would cry. So I was
freaking out. It was a popcorncolonel just fell off in her hands soon.
So I waited for like six hours. Tell me that the blister I
thought was gonna surely churn into atumor that was going to consume his lower
half was actually just a popcorn colonelthat I ended up and bended in there

(56:36):
and drop. Yeah. So Iunderstand, and I also understand the humiliation.
And you then have to pay somebodyfor that, yes, yes,
yeah, Um so again, thedoctors have no questions about this baby.
And so if the doctor comes outand it's Kimberly sus dad, whom we

(56:57):
love, and actually I was like, this is gonna be a little love
interest. But that's not what happened. Um. So she comes out and
she goes, I have bad news. He's totally fine, just kidding,
And I was like, don't dothat. That's not a funny er doctor
joke, that is not what you. You don't joke about the baby,
probably don't joke about anybody. Ididn't think that was funny at all.

(57:21):
It was terrible. That was terrible. So they all go home together in
one car, which I found wasinteresting because they all came separately. Uber
we know Um, what's his face? Taylor? Taylor was in the car.
I bet Stephan's toho. I honestlyfeel like Stephan takes public transportation or
uber. He might be just toonervous to be dry. Oh, I

(57:45):
don't know what that was. Sothey all have their apologies, Um,
and the car and they bond.They have a moment. Yeah, in
the car. The car was aminivan, and so it made me wonder
where the van came from and who'sbeen driving the minivan and their family this
whole time. Probably Luke, becausehe's that responsible. If anyone ever dropped

(58:07):
off a baby, he was gonnabe ready. That's what I said.
I was like, man, thatLuke like does all the pickups and drop
offs for Little League and stuff likethat, just for the kids that don't
have dads. Yep. Probably thesedays it seems like everybody's talking, but
no one is actually listening to thethings they're saying. Critical thinking isn't dead,

(58:29):
but it's definitely low on oxygen.Join me, Kira Davis on just
listen to yourself every week as wereason through issues big and small, critique
our own ideas, and learn todraw our talking points all the way out
to their logical conclusions. Subscribe toJust Listen to Yourself with Kira Davis an
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(58:51):
your podcasts. All Right, theChristmas Light contest is tomorrow, and they
are like, we're gonna We're gonnanail this. We're gonna do it.
So the guys are like a welloiled machine getting ready. We see Mark's
face when he sees it, andhe is like shocked at how great the
house looks. But we haven't seenit. All we saw was Mark's reaction.
So Mark decides to go like putup more stuff and bring his house

(59:13):
up another level because now he's worriedabout the guys across the street. Um,
they call in the girls. Theywant the lights back, they want
some help from Susie and if ourFiona, I'd be like no, but
but Fiona shows up anyway, Iguess because well, but she does make
it clear that it's for the mom. She knows this is for the mom
and she loves the mom. Yeah, and oh and I left out that
if you win this contest you geta cruise. So the boys are trying

(59:34):
to win it to send their monication, right, so she's like, okay,
I'll help. Um. Also,so Luke, at one point his
whole is feeding the baby and heholds the bottle super weird. He held
it like overhand instead of under andI've never seen anyone do that. I
thought that was weird. But okay, whatever baby was being fed getting sustenance.
So he was getting sustenance. Soit's the night of the test,

(01:00:00):
big unveiling TV station is there.Of course Mark is trying to defend his
crown. It's going to be fouryears in a row. And there's dozens
of people out there, dozens ofpeople stuff. And presumably because there are
so many people, right, presumablythese people have just been traveling neighborhood to
neighborhood with this reporting crew. Yeah, going and looking at all of the

(01:00:23):
houses. This is a big deal. Reminds me of the intense pumpkin pie
making watching and pumpkin pie wars.Yeah, exactly, exactly similar vibes.
Um. So I don't think thatthese brothers like officially entered the contest,
but I guess you don't have tobecause Mark is showing them his house and

(01:00:44):
they are gushing over how greades thishouse is and here comes the fire truck
coming down the road with the star, the star of Date the I don't
mean Starve David, I mean theChristmas Star star. Jeez, I feel
like it isn't their name anyway,Christmas Star on the front of the fire
truck. And they're like, whoa, so stuff, and it's like,
I don't know if I can dothis. I don't know if I can
go outside, and they're like,we're gonna do it together. Yeah.

(01:01:08):
So they go outside and they're beingthe Three Wise Men. They're having this
like live Nativity. Susie is holdingthe baby. Um, they realize that
they forgot to get a Joseph.So there's some So Susie is playing Mary
Thomas. The baby is baby Jesus, and then they are the Three Wise
Men. So they start. Fionastarts the show and a circuit blows what

(01:01:30):
a random Well, Luke starts.Lucas like we need to just come up
with something. So he goes,ahoy, yeah that was cute. That
Ahoy Christmas. So he's like,we've got gifts, Um, I've got
some frankincense. I don't know.And Stephen, who was totally frozen,

(01:01:51):
steps up and he starts telling thestory and he's excited, and then he
kind of They wrap up and theydon't know what they're gonna do next because
Fonna still hasn't gotten the thing workingbecause she did ask Taylor if the circuits
could handle this and he said yes, because he's a liar and just assumes
things. But what is that fromthe crowd. Someone starts singing Silent Night.

(01:02:13):
It's mom, Mom, she's home. She all thinks my light together,
and as Silent Night wraps up,Fiona gets the lights going. Everything's
perfect, and then the newslady islike, well, we have a clear
winner this year. It is obviouslyMark because this was or something. I
was like, they better not winbecause they actually did nothing. Yeah,

(01:02:35):
it was pretty bad. Yeah,Mark still wins um. At the same
time, another person in the crowd, who we find out later is Sophie.
She shows up. She is Thomas'smother. She is back to get
Sophie, and they're all sad becausethat was we correct up when she pushed
through that crowd, because it wasvery much Elijah Wood again elf a moment.

(01:03:01):
It was the actress just did nothappen to give. Yeah. She
was like, she was like,Thomas my baby. That was actually she
said it Thomas my baby. We'relike, okay, well the mom did
come back and she doesn't look likea cracked out method, which is what

(01:03:21):
you know you would expect. Totallynormal, nice looking woman, great brother,
but beautiful actually she was. Sothey all go into the house and
it turns out that I think youremembered, it was five months previously she
went into labor. Really suddenly.Luke helped her deliver the baby. So
she always knew that Luke was someonethat she could count on because he was
really calm in a crisis. Hehelped her out, he was kind.

(01:03:45):
So again we're having to consider thissingle mom pregnant, how all that went
down? Yea, um, andyou know, just a lot for the
homework. We know what did notgo down with Luke. Okay, even
suggest and she saw Luke without ashirt on and got pregnant. Yeah,

(01:04:06):
but I thought Luke without a shirton and it could happen, and I'm
pushing menopause. I felt I hadto go take a pregnancy test after seeing
that. Oh my goodness, hewas. He's hot, chiseled, we'll
say that. Um. So inthe morning, it's Christmas morning, the
mom is so happy, everyone's together, the boys are on good terms.

(01:04:29):
So then we see they're all happy, they're inside whatever. Then we see
this guy knocking on the front doorfrom the back, and I thought their
dad was showing up. I wasone hot that this was their dads showing
up. And I was like,this is gonna be so weird. How
are we gonna like reconcile all thisin like the ten minutes this movie as
loft, but it wasn't. Itwas Stephen at Susie's house and he um,

(01:04:53):
and he's like, I was,and gave the talk at the shelter,
Like when was he like the ChristmasEve obviously, because when you do
you were doing the Life Show afteryou have a lot of Amelia, as
you know, a lot of businessgets done on Christmas Eve. Yeah,
and a lot of people were thereto adopt last minute of presence copy presence,

(01:05:14):
so he was like, don't doit. He was there, um
and she's like did it go well? And he's like, I passed out
and she's like, well you tried, and then they kiss. Yeah okay.
Taylor meanwhile comes back to fun ingames and apologize to everybody. He's
got his job back. He tellsFiona that she was like, you know,
the best thing that ever happened tohim, and he really loves her.

(01:05:38):
And I was just wondering why hewas doing this in front of like
the entire company, because like,if I were Fiona, i'd feel super
uncomfortable right now. I don't likeemotional moments, and I don't want people
watching them, not at work.I didn't like it not at work,
especially with friends. I don't.I don't want some guy tell me all
of his feelings in front of you. Maybe, but you know, that

(01:05:58):
could be if it's if there's apostal coming or something that that might be
an exception. I don't like it. I don't know. I want.
I've always wanted Mark to profess hisamazingly deep and unique feelings for me in
front of friends. I'm one ofthose people that wishes he would post more
on social media about how great Iam, but he's not that kind of

(01:06:23):
When he does that shitty like tagwhere you work, just to let all
of them know, no, we'llsee this is what I'm saying. Work,
no, but in front of friends, yes, I do want you
breaking about me and professing your undyinglove in front of friends. That's important
to me. He never does itbut a moment, and I think Fiona
would have been fine to be like, you're going to have to do some

(01:06:43):
work and show me that you've actuallychanged, But obviously she doesn't because it's
a hallmark. So hey, pinkycare instead of kissing. Yeah, okay,
okay, And you know what,I think that that was perfectly fine.
It gives Fiona a moment of dignitythere instead of falling back to the
arms of the man baby that sheis surely going to have go right back
to all of those immaturity problems soonenough. I mean, I didn't see

(01:07:08):
any scenes of him cleaning up thebeer cans and Chinese food out of his
basement apartment. Um, there's areason why they didn't work out the first
time, So cleon a girl.I think he's a red flag, but
you do you. Luke meanwhile,grabs the little baby foot ornament off the
tree that the brothers had gotten atthe mall and brings it to Thomas's mom.

(01:07:29):
She lives in a beautiful townhouse.Yeah, that I think is also
at the townhouse from Noel next Door, which was a really good movie from
earlier this year that we didn't doon the podcast, but it was really
cute. Um, she invites himin, and now we skipped to one
year later. Um, Luke isin his new house. He's got everybody
there for Christmas, including Mark.That's not the weird ever, well Mark,

(01:07:54):
you know, Mark came over fora beer after after the event.
You know what, good I gotthe cruise, but you guys, I
got deep respect for you. Um. So everyone's there, everyone's in their
couple. Taylor and Fiona are stilltogether, m Stephan and Susie are still
together, and Luke and Sophia arestill together. Thomas is there obviously,

(01:08:17):
he's like, you know, oneand a half now, and then the
dancing Sugar Palms fairies come on.They start to do the ant dance.
The end the end. So wegot to make Luca dad without having to
go through the messy um process ofhim actually becoming a dad. He got
to be It's like why you haveuncles so much in Hallmark universes who really

(01:08:41):
don't have to like think about theman having a kid, abandoning the mom
any of that Luke got to bethe dad without having to go through any
of that unsavory Hallmark drama. Okay, and I know, so that's right.
Here we go. Um, acouple of things hit me. I

(01:09:03):
know you've got to go. ButSophie, Sophie, all right, girl,
she left that baby for five daysto what gather herself or she left
her what two weeks? Yeah,she said she had to like get back
on her feet or something. Shewas feeling overwhelmed. She's feeling overwhelmed.
Okay, UM, I get that, and I don't want to judge,

(01:09:27):
because ladies, if you need todrop your baby off somewhere like a fire
station with the hot firefighters rather thando something that could bring harm to the
baby, of course, totally supportthat. Um. But this is homework
and what on earth? And it'snot like she went away and she's like
I'm going to rehab or I'm likeI'm going to get She wasn't like I'm

(01:09:47):
going to to back to my mom'shouse to get this money that I buried
there twenty years ago or something thatwasn't some self care. Where did she
go? She couldn't pay the rent? She said she couldn't pay the rendous
she thought she might lose her apartment, her amazing apartment by the way.
Um, and so what changed?How did she looked perfectly fine and normal?

(01:10:13):
And I'm sorry, Luke, butred flag the lady that drops off
the baby with strangers. Yes,that's the right thing to do rather than
harm the baby, but that's stilla person with red flags a mom can't
you handle the baby? And you'dthink that firefighters would be like somewhat aware
of people like having like a rescuersyndrome. I don't know what I'm trying

(01:10:36):
to call it, but like,yeah, savior rescue personally for your whole
life. But maybe I guess Iguess he is because they're in love.
Now, that's who he is,all right. So that bothered me.
I mean I knew from as soonas because the two guys had love interests
and Luke had no one, andso I was like, obviously he's going

(01:10:57):
to be involved with the with themom at some point. The mom's going
to be his love interest. Um, but uh, the script you wrote
the script, Yes, it's veryexciting, so you must have gotten nuts.
They did this during one of theirlittle breaks where the three guys were

(01:11:18):
talking. Every now and then thecommercial breaks, the three guys would check
okay, then you missed it.The people. It was written by two
people, the two people who wrotethe script Kimberly Sustaed and Paul Campbell.
What yes, So the doctor Kimberlysusted who's one of our favorite actresses,

(01:11:38):
and then Paul Campbell, who isStephan in this movie. And they also
do a number their regular Hallmark partners, actually the two of them, so
they clearly have a professional relationship aswell, and that I believe that's why
you see all those crossovers with thosenames. I think they wrote this movie
based on all their favorite people andthat the work with Yeah, you're right,

(01:12:00):
Yeah, so it makes sense.And that's why as soon as I
heard that, I was like,ah, no, wonder the script is
so bity, you know, likeI had that sarcastic bite to it that
it is. It's like the sarcasticmale actor and the sarcastic female actor from
the channel wrote. Yeah, theywrote it. So the whole script makes
a lot more sense when you seethat they wrote it. It does,

(01:12:25):
it does. Yeah, So thatwas fun. I liked it. Um.
I thought it was super cute.Um, I don't know about the
tropes that showed up. Does thebaby count as a precocious kid? Oh,
they were like tropes. Nobody drankhot chocolate. No, it would
have gotten a snowball fight. Um, there was a contest. There was

(01:12:47):
a contest. Okay, there's somebodyfalling off something like I don't remember anybody
falling. No, they had theopportunity. There was bigger skating. With
the skating they did, they didn'twant it. It's a Christmas Eve deadline
kind of because that's when the contestwas. But I don't think that counts
because usually it's like a work deadlinedecorating skating or a snowball fight. There

(01:13:09):
was skating, but not with thepeople. You never and we never actually
saw the skating. Right. Theydecorated, but again we never actually saw
them decorating. Right, right,A situation that could easily be solved by
Jos saying something. I think thewhole baby thing. If she had gone
and said, hey, I'm Sophie, a woman that you never had intimate

(01:13:32):
relations with, and this is nota baby, but could you help me?
Yeah, I think I think thatwould have probably helped the movie a
lot. Well. I think atthe end too, when they all run
out because the baby has a rashand you know, Fiona baby basically like
telling Taylor like, oh yeah,you always run you always sure you run

(01:13:53):
away when things get good. Hecould have just said the baby's sick.
Yes, I saw the same thing, and then she'd be like, he's
being a responsible a belt for once, right he took. Yeah, he
was kind of running away in thesense that he was like, I don't
want to do the lights anymore.I don't want you to help. But
he was not literally running away likeshe thought he was right, he was
going to do something responsible. Um, So that was one kiss at the

(01:14:15):
end. So they did wait togive us kiss at the end. They
did, Yeah, the kiss umblack best friend there was the um,
I don't recall the fire chief waswas like he was like he was like
the black mentor though, talking aboutlike there's nothing better than having a family,

(01:14:36):
and he'd you know, take thatany day over you know, all
of his free time and whatever.Yeah, but I don't recall a black
best friend for anybody. Yeah,and so this brings me to what I
wanted to talk about, because Ihave definitely noticed a distinct change in Hallmark
movies this season. We saw itcoming last season, but they pulled out

(01:14:56):
a few that were still great.I'm noticing the shift on in Hallmark.
And what I did this week wasI switched over to Great American Family Channel
just to see what was going onover there. And it was great.
It was great. I've got acouple of my DVR, but I haven't
watched him yet, but I think, yeah, I think to get that

(01:15:17):
old Hallmark Hallmark feeling, you're gonnahave to go over there. I watched
I sat the other night. Imean, I've actually been watching the movies
all week now, and I'll goto Hallmark because if they have the older
movies, of course I love those, but it is what Hallmark was like.
I'm noticing a lot more surprises inHallmark, you know, and not

(01:15:40):
just the thing of where we're gettinglike gay couples or there's like a gay
Hallmark movie. That's not just thator that. It's more diverse. But
even like this, this movie,this script was more of a diversion from
the Christmas formula. There's more surprisesin there with like dialogue and new and

(01:16:00):
yes implied sex right discussion of procreation, Like there's more surprises than the Hallmark
universe, and there is a termthat there is something missing. I'm just
I don't know what it is,but my senses tell me that a lot
of the people who are working overthere aren't Hallmark fans, and like they

(01:16:25):
took the job because it's a job, not because they love the brand or
the company. And that's just myopinion. But I watch Hallmark because I
don't want surprises. I watch Hallmarkbecause I know what I'm gonna get every
single movie. It's all the same, that's the point. And I think

(01:16:46):
Hallmark is maybe evolving itself out ofits own brand. And now now that
I've watched the Great American Family Channeland what we're doing on Hallmark, I
see why Candice Cameron left. AndI know a lot of people in the
media want to say it's because she'sa big old homophobe or whatever, but

(01:17:08):
the truth is is that I thinkshe saw the writing on the wall.
She's a businesswoman and she knows whatwas going on at the top. The
leadership of Hallmark has changed and thebrand is changing, and that's not her
brand, and I think she isone of the creative directors. I think
she has like an executive position atthe channel, at Great American Family Channel,
so she can she'll have some sayin that stuff not happening again and

(01:17:31):
just make the Yeah. Dannika mckellertoo, she made that same deal.
And I there's Danika mckeller movie comingon this weekend that I want to watch.
But the one I watched, Iwatched one last night and I was
like, this movie is perfectly awful. It is perfect. It was you
know, it was like a terribleleading man, a cute leading woman,

(01:17:55):
and had all the tropes that hada precocious kid, snowball fight, terrible
fake snow bad sets, had everythingyou love about a Hallmark movie. So
I'm disappointed at the direction Hallmark.We're not a banding Hallmark people, but
I do think but we're not goingto be exclusive either. Yeah, I
think we need to expand our rostera little bit because a Great American Family

(01:18:17):
Channel has got some potential. Theonly thing so far that's not working over
there is they have copious amounts ofads, which is understandable. It's their
first year, so they're trying tomake money. But there's a lot of
ads. So the commercial breaks areyeah, they're pretty they're pretty long,
but um, looking forward to seeingwhat they what they do over there and

(01:18:42):
again, yeah, I was sittingthere watching this movie and just picking off
the tropes and having so much fun. So Hallmark, I hope that you
can maybe pull back a little bitand get back to the basics. I
I as an artist, I appreciatethat you want that the people you work
with their want to expand and maybetake Hallmark into the new era. But

(01:19:04):
if it ain't broke, don't fixit. And I think you're trying to
fix something that doesn't need to befixed. And I'm not talking about the
diversity stuff and all of that likethat. I'm talking with stories. Yeah,
it's the stories, the feels it. I know it must be boring
to make a hundred of the samemovie every year, but that's what we

(01:19:24):
go to Hallmark for so reach Ihope they'll pull it back. Amelia,
I M. So it's Thanksgiving weekend, this is Hallmark kickoff. Now we've
got some of our romance drama comingin. What is our schedule going to
be looking like as we move outat coming up? I think coming up

(01:19:47):
this Weekend is the Royal Corgi one, Oh yes Weekend and Haul Out the
Holly is the other one I'm reallyexcited for. It's a Lacy Shabet and
it looks like it might be moreof a classic. We'll see. We
love Leci Shabet. So yeah.But and as we get our other outlets

(01:20:09):
go in, I think we're gonnabe watching even more. Yeah. Absolutely,
Okay, Well, I just wantto say quickly, remember to follow
us on Instagram at a very MerryPodcast, Twitter at a very Merry Pod,
Facebook a very Merry podcast, soyou know what's coming up. And
yeah, and please like and subscribethis podcast. That helps a lot.

(01:20:29):
If you'd like to give us aChristmas present, it's free. That's all
you gotta do. Hit Mike,it was a good writing and a nice
review. Subscribe and give us areview, give us a nice review,
even if the review is just likeKiera and Amelia are so pretty, just
put words there, put nice words, and yeah, we accept that.
And so Amelia, until we meetagain, I wish you days filled with

(01:20:59):
phil with cocky neighbors who drive bigtrucks, who are really just friendly teddy
bears on the inside, who justneed a hug. It's funny you should
say that, because I was gonnawish you the kind of joy you feel
when you win a contest four yearsin a row. Thank you, Amelia.

(01:21:20):
That's the main thing. I wouldalso like to end with the fact
that the brothers have paying no rentand so could have afforded to send their
mom on the cruise. Right.I like to think the people are they
just forgot to mention it. Okay, we'll go with that, all right,
Mary Christmas, Amelia Christmas. Thishas been a presentation of the FCB

(01:21:54):
podcast Network, where Real Talk liftsvisitors online and FCB Podcasts dot Com.