Monday, December 17, 2007

Christmasplosion!

My Mom's awesome! I know you think your Mom's cool or whatever, that's fine, but my Mom is without a doubt one of the best Mom's in the world. Wikipedia that shit if you don't believe me. Her name's Teresa. It's a shame that publicity hog "Mother Teresa" came along first and stole my Mom's thunder. I'm pretty sure my mom could kick that nuns ass back when "MT" was alive. I know for a fact my mom could have beaten her in arm wrestling.

Let me get something out in the open and on the table. I'm a bona fide, 100%, certified, grade A, quintessential "Momma's boy". I'll admit it. I'm not ashamed and I wouldn't change it if I could. I love my Mom and she's helped make me the person I am today. I like the person I am today. I'm not perfect, but I ain't no Michael Vick either.

Mom's don't get enough respect for all that they do. Mostly they get shunned when we're teenagers, blamed for our fallacies when we reach middle age because we aren't mature enough to take responsibility for our own faults, and are only truly appreciated when we either loose them or they are too old to appreciate it. Call your mom right now and tell her you love her, trust me it will mean a lot to her.

My Mom was always there for me growing up and is still always there for me now. We would always be on the road looking for that perfect costume for a character I was doing, looking for the right prop, or just tooling around town running silly errands for one of my dumb projects. She never batted an eye, even if she had 100 other things to do, and she normally did. I really monopolized her time and I'll never be able to repay her for all the time she gave up for me, but I'm pretty she she's cool with that.

She not only gave her time willingly to me, around my junior year in high school, she started helping out with the youth department at our church. That turned into a full time gig, which she just retired from two years ago. For over 10 years, she cared for each and every kid that went through that church like they were her own. She gave the kids her time and would put everything on hold just to talk one on one with any of them when they had a problem. She organized two mission trips every year and was solely responsible for all the food preparation for each trip. I watched her get those meals ready and it was an enormous task unto itself.

My mom has always had a thing for food though, in particular cookies and cakes. I'm not sure when it started, because it's been happening as far back as I can remember. Every Christmas my Mom starts baking.

And baking.

And baking.

And baking some more.

She bakes 30 different kinds of cookies. She makes fudge. She makes caramel corn. And when shes done making it all, she gives it all away. She gives cookies to the Mailman. To the Trash men. To the kids at Sonic that have served her Diet Cherry-Limeaids all year. If you know my mom, odds are you'll be getting a care package full of dozens of different kinds of baked goods.

She told me she made over 8000 cookies last year. Some may look at her baked goods obsession and shake their heads. They may think she's crazy or just strange. I look at it and Thank God there's a person like her on Earth. There's a lot of shitty people in the world. People that shake their heads do so because it's inconceivable to them that someone would give so unselfishly. It's crazy to them because they're to wrapped up in their lives to think about others. I know this to be true because I'm one of the selfish, self centered jerks. Unfortunately there's a lot more of us jerks than there are nice people. So when I'm too busy to say "thank you" or to wrapped up in my problems to notice the homeless guy in the street, I'm thankful at least one person I know is sharing their time and love. I'm trying to be nicer, but it's hard. Being a jerk is easier and more accepted by society. Being a jerk is the new black.

I could tell you how much baking she does during the rest of the year as well, but I need to get to the meat of this blog. I'm sure you're all thinking, "Why is he talking about his mom, it ain't mothers day?" I'm talking about my mom because I want to share the amazing Christmas wonderland that she creates every year in her home.

My mom is totally gay for Christmas. She's been amassing Christmas decorations for years. Each year there's more. I still don't understand where she finds the time to cook AND put up the 9 Christmas trees.

I went through and took some pictures of my mom's winter wonderland when we were down there last week. The pictures don't do it justice, so if you live in Dallas, please stop in and take a tour. It's free and my Mom loves having visitors. Also if any local news affiliates are reading my blog, please do a human interest story on my mom's house, it's that unbelievable!

I have a shit load of pictures so prepare yourselves. I'm just going to post these pictures with little commentary, unless I think of a really good joke. OK even if I think of a really lame joke.



I thought the Nazi M&M was a bit much, but what are ya gonna do?




This is what Santa's poop looks like...





























































Here are two of my Mom's 4 convection ovens.

My Mom can really mix it up.


These pictures really don't do the whole thing justice. Each tree has a theme. Mom has collected tons of different nativity scenes as well as those little Christmas villages.

My Mom is always worried that people will think she's crazy for having so much Christmas stuff up. I told her if a person is worried that people might think they are crazy, it usually means they aren't crazy, it's when you STOP wondering if your crazy that you might have a problem.

If you've ever had any of my Mom's baked goods, or my Mom has ever listened to you when you were down, or you've ever seen her infectious smile, please leave a comment. She's going to kill me for writing all this stuff about her anyway. Please help me on this, I'm gonna need backup.

I love you Mom, thanks for all you do for me and for everyone else.

Merry Christmas!