For my gift exchange, I asked my secret Santa to send stuff to my mom because I've been on another continent and haven't seen her in two years. My mom has been going through a tough time and is living on disability, and has occasional brain seizures.

I asked for a lot of goodies, teas, lotions and other stuff moms love. My secret Santa looked at my profile and noticed I lived in France and sent a lot of cool Italian and French goodies! It looks like they loaded up a cart of awesomeness at Trader Joes.

Here is the email and photos she took last week.

Well the chocolate was delicious and the pretzel crackers are good. Do you eat the pesto? The other thing is I need to know if the Nutty Almond creme is lotion or what... its amazing on your skin ...the smell is on me all night? What exactly is it?

I made bread with almond milk... I tried to cook it outside.... sure rised ok until the grill cooled off... then i opened it and brought it inside. I put it oven to let it brown about 15 minutes.... turned out yummy....

I hope you have a good time camping... love you

Just Skyped my mom and told her how to fix the pesto and to put the almond nut cream on her homemade bread. :-)

She then opened up my package and there was a Yao Ming rage face tshirt, (which she thinks is "absolutely cute" an antique looking bottle of crema di limone (yummy), and some penne.

An added bonus my mom is reminding me of something we would do when I was in Kindergarten and first grade. We had a tiny black and white 4 inch portable television and we would make popcorn and sit in the car while in the garage with the television on the hood of the car and pretend we were in a drive in movie theater.

She is now telling me about her new goofy dog that will go down the slide over and over again at the park. Funny stuff.

Anyway. Thanks for making my mom's day and sending so much awesome stuff. You made my day, too. :-)