Mom's Annual Christmas Horror Show: A Photo/Video Essay

Mom is awesome and she loves Christmas. Every year she gets a little bit crazier with the decorations, and this year's wonderfully garish gallery of Christmas kookiness provides the long-sought-after answer to the question that generations before us have posed to the Gods for centuries: "Why not dress that duck figurine perched in front of the fireplace in a Santa costume?" The above video is what greets you as you enter the house, a motion-sensor Christmas Moose that IS VERY SENSITIVE TO ANY AIR MOVING IN FRONT OF ITS FACE AND OFTEN SINGS UNTIL YOU THINK YOU'LL LOSE YOUR MIND.


Nativity scene #1, with Mary and Joseph welcoming the newborn baby Jesus and the three wisemen welcoming the birth of that big black plug.


Mrs. Clause and her magical Christmas dildo.


Nativity scene #2, this one on the piano. Mary is played by Patricia Clarkson and Joseph is played by Ryan Gosling's older brother.


This creepy little elf/dwarf/gnome thing also greets you when you enter the house, staring and pointing with both hands. (Both hands!) I think the most unsettling thing is you can't see his mouth. One should never trust an elf whose mouth one cannot see, like it says in the Bible.

Nativity scene #3, this one courtesy of me! Bought this for momma in Buenos Aires.

Why did this Christmas angel steal Mrs. Clause's magic Christmas dildo? Christmas is supposed to be about giving, not taking, Christmas angel!

Nativity scene #4.

Dieter the Christmas duck.

I wonder if Mom has noticed that her lovely tree is being eated by that angel's dress.

Nativity scene #5, about to be eated by that angel's dress.

The angel and her ravenous dress.

Lillybit the dog is creeped out by that elf, too.

Big Jesus News: Statue Completed in Swiebodzin, Poland

Magnificent news out of Poland, folks. (Wow, when was the last time I typed that?) Construction on a new ginormous Jesus statue is complete and, in terms of sheer size (which is all that matters), it beats the holy flippin' bejezus out of the breathtaking Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio. (Which I still haven't seen.) So the question becomes: when are Jimmy and I booking our flight to Swiebodzin? The answer is: gimme some money, Obama, so I can go to Poland.

The good Swiebodzin people are hoping that this new statue will be a draw for Jesus-loving tourists the world over and a new site for Christian pilgrimage, like Paula Dean's restaurant in Savannah or Sarah Palin's swimmin' hole in Wasilla. And why shouldn't it? This Jesus has a golden crown, bitches, just like in the Bible. (It's the crown that makes this Jesus the largest in the world.) In addition, he's handsome and so, so white--also just like in the Bible. Look at that bone structure.

But the key question now is this: are we allowed to go up and inside the Jesus head? This is important, because if not I'll bring my pogo stick and a little parachute with me.

Is Jesus Living in My Mom's Thomas Kinkade Painting?

Jimmy and I were down in NC last week for our friend's wedding and we visited for a while with my ma and pa in Raleigh, during which time we finally got the opportunity to see this Thomas Kinkade painting she'd been talking about that features an image of Christ Almighty in the window of a cute little cottage in France or something.

"So where's this alleged Jesus?" I asked her all uppity-like as I walked into the room and saw Jimmy shaking his head and saying to her "no, sorry, I don't."

"Jimmy doesn't see it!" mom exclaimed, flabbergasted. "Now, I've shown this to everyone who walks in here and he is the only person who hasn't seen it. That just doesn't make any sense!"


Well, there's Jimmy in a nutshell. And I have no doubt that mom has indeed shown this Jesus to everyone who has walked through her living room, from UPS delivery men to neighbors to the cat to girl scouts selling cookies to her trainer to the contractor coming in to give her an estimate on the countertops she wants to my dad wandering around the house with his dog in his arm.

"Well, show it to me, I wanna see it!" So mom gets out her ruler and points it out to my skeptical eyeballs. Here's the video. (I eventually get the camera angle right.)



In conclusion, my mom is awesome and she has finally succeeded in leading me to Jesus. He's smaller than I imagined he would be.