Is your Mom the kind who still cries when Clarence gets his wings at the end of "It's a Wonderful Life", even though she's seen it every holiday season since she was a kid? If so, and even if not, if you want to see her get all teary eyed when she opens her gift from you this holiday season, then you need to do some advance planning.
I know...when you saw personalized photo album in the title you were thinking, "how can I give her a bunch of pictures when she's the one who has them all?" I have three words for you - Thanksgiving Commando Run.
What you do is, when everyone is comatose on the couch watching college football, you sneak into the family photo albums (or the dusty box in the back of the closet, as the case may be) and scrounge around until you find thirty or so pictures that follow a particular theme.
The theme will be determined by the pictures you have at your fingertips, but generally you can probably do something like, 'my family over the years', 'goofy things we got caught doing by you as kids', or maybe 'a collection of pictures of your favorite child - me'.You get the idea - just find the pictures you want to use and smuggle them out of the house. Be sure they come back in the same shape they left in, though, or you might get that 'twist the skin on the bottom of your arm' punishment that you so dreaded as a kid.
Now, the easy part. Take them home, scan them into your computer so you can print them out the same size (or use the pictures you filched from your mom if you think she'd be o.k. with it). Then go down to the local craft store, pick up a generic photo album, pick a theme that includes some pretty ribbons, applique's, and some nice decorative paper you can write your thoughts on for each image, as well as use to decorate the different pages on each album. You can also easily do something like this using the scrap booking collections you can find at the craft stores or even at the Wally World.
If you just read that last paragraph and went, aaaakkkkkk!, don't worry, you can still pull this off. Once you have your scanned pictures, go online and pick up a digital photo frame, or upload your pictures to a site that can print you a photo book that comes with a theme and everything - you just point and click.
So, if you're sick of Mom crying when Virginia thinks there's not a Santa Claus, give her something to really cry about - a personalized photo album from her baby.
Make Your Mom Cry This Christmas - Make Her A Personalized Photo Album