A six pack of plastic hangers… The ultimate in multifunctionality, Greek mothers love how plastic hangers don’t take up space in their closets like wooden hangers do. They come in a variety of colors that allow for optimum organization of her closets. And face it, after raising you for all those years, isn’t it time that you help her replace the ones that she lost over the years teaching you all of life’s greatest lessons? Remember the time you broke her commemorative Bicentennial plate when you were running through the house when you were 9? Remember the time you were 14 and she was supposed to pick you up at the high school parking lot at 10:00 and you didn’t show up until 1:30 in the morning? Or that time you threw that New Year’s Eve party in the basement when you were 18 when her and your father had gone out of the evening and thought that she wouldn’t notice the four Hefty bags of beer cans and the scuff marks from 60 of your closest friends in the basement? If you don’t remember, there is probably a white, blue, and pink broken plastic hanger that remembers each occasion rather well, sacrificing itself to make sure that you never did anything that stupid ever again. 

A pair of good athletic shoes… You know the only reason you were ever able to outrun your mother when you were younger was because she didn’t have the right gear. Now it’s years later and she’s pretty much done raising you, and more than likely she’s found better things to do with her time. A few years ago our mother decided that she was going to devote her spare time to helping the ladies of the church prepare for festivals, senior citizens lunches, and generally any time they needed large quantities of baked goods prepared. She also decided that this didn’t tire her out enough and that she’d take up walking during the evenings. For both of these things, a pair of good athletic shoes was key. It’s a pretty funny sight watching a 5’5” Greek lady strap on a pair of spotless white Nikes to her feet. And how she maintains them that white, we’ll never know. 

Caller ID… Years later, my mom discovered that sometimes the ladies of the church need a lot more help than she could possibly give them. Because a Greek mother never wants to say no to a worthy cause, Caller ID was the answer to avoiding being drafted for seventeen straight days of festival prep. 

A pot, some soil, and some random produce from the Shopper’s Food Warehouse… Over the years we’ve watched our mom have the ability to grow, sometimes resurrect, just about anything that you can put in the ground, water, and expect to grow. One day our mom decided to put an avocado pit in a pot and now there’s a two foot avocado tree growing in her family room. It’s a challenge to find something a Greek mother can’t grow. One of these days we’d like to bring her a bag of M&Ms just to see how long it would take her to find a way to make those come up from under the ground. 

Tickets to a D.C. United game… One of the best gifts we ever got our mom for Mother’s Day were tickets to a D.C. United game. Yeah, no, these weren’t for her. These tickets were for us to take our dad to the game, just to get him out of the house and to give her some peace and quiet. Sometimes the greatest thing you could give a Greek mother for Mother’s Day is taking your Greek father off her hands for a while.