Boomland!

This being our first Christmas as empty-nesters, we found ourselves with three days in which we could do anything we wanted for the holidays ...

So, we went to Boomland!

Is there anywhere else on earth you can buy a sugar cured ham in a bag, an entire dining room full of primitive pine furniture, enough Christmas crap to decorate a small village, a 3-D picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe that follows you when you walk past her, a faux marble tabletop Last Supper with black disciples and glowing fiberoptic lights around the Blessed Black Savior's head ... AND a couple of acres of professional grade, military-sounding fireworks all under one roof!? You can buy Jesus in just about any format or ethnicity ... from fridge magnets and t-shirts to large lighted crucifixes and coffee mugs ... and then blow it all up with a roll of 50,000 Black Cat firecrackers!

I salivated a little over the $1000 "All You Can Blow Up" fireworks set ... on sale for $449.99 ... but the smaller "Shock and Awe" assortment was also verrrrry tempting. And let me tell you, if I had a place to light off the Exploding Bobble-Head Jesus that shoots skyrockets out of his thorny-crowned head, well I don't know that I could have walked away ...

The juxtaposition of all that Jesus and all that firepower ... well ... it's ... just sort of overwhelmingly American. I feel like a better person and a better citizen just for having been there.

Hooooo-rah!

Kwach