Anyone can grab a bunch of flowers or box of chocolates at the last-minute – put a little extra time, effort and love into this year’s Mother’s Day gift and it will mean so much more…
Cook her a special meal
Instead of taking your mum out to a restaurant, cook her a special meal at home.
Choose a meal that’s a traditional family favourite and one that she used to cook for you, or go for something with special meaning for her (for example, try a Greek recipe if she recently enjoyed a holiday to Greece). If you’re stuck for ideas, try browsing our Recipes. Decide whether she’d prefer to be waited on in her own home or come to your house to eat so that she feels like she’s ‘out’.
Lay the table nicely, with a pretty table cloth, your best cutlery and perhaps a vase of flowers. Make sure your mum knows that you’ll clear, wash-up and put away afterwards, so she can relax and enjoy the meal without worrying about dirty dishes! Make sure you’ve got her favourite wine on hand to wash the meal down.
If you’ve got kids, get them to help out – you could put them in charge of particular jobs, such as setting the table or washing up afterwards.
Top tip: If you’re not a confident cook, why not get your mum’s favourite takeaway for the main meal and make a simple homemade dessert instead? Try our easy but impressive Kit Kat & Smarties cake – you could customise the recipe by using your mum’s favourite sweets or chocolate for the topping.
Make her a mix CD
We all know how music can stir up our emotions and bring back fond memories. Make a list of your mum’s favourite songs and those that have special significance, for example: the one she chose for her first dance on her wedding day, the song that was at number one in the charts when she was born and the day her children were born, or music that reminds you of special holidays together. You’ll need about 10 to 20 tracks, or however many will fit on a recordable CD (the packaging will normally tell you how many minutes of recording time it has).
If you don’t already own these songs on CD, see if you can borrow them from a friend or your local library, or download them online. Save each one on your computer’s using a program like Window Media Player or iTunes. Next, create a playlist of the songs to burn onto your CD. Pay attention to the order you put the songs in – do you want to put them in chronological order, or mix the styles up?
Finally, insert a blank, recordable CD into your computer’s drive and select the option to ‘burn’ or record your CD. Use a permanent marker to label the CD.
Top tip: Put some thought into how you’ll decorate the CD cover. If you’re a whizz with technology, you can do this on your computer or online; otherwise, you may want to borrow some of the tips from the idea below and use a printout of a photo.
Make a framed photo collage
Choose photos that reflect your relationship with your mum and the special memories you share. To find photos on Facebook, and trawl through your mum’s old photo albums and digital collections (try to find an excuse to get access to them without her suspecting!).
Pictures of you, and your siblings if you have them, with your mum when you were small are bound to bring warm memories flooding back. As well as weddings, Christenings and milestone birthdays, you could also take snapshots of places that have been significant in your lives like a park where you used to play, a favourite restaurant or the house where you grew up.
When you’ve collected your photos, lay them all out together and experiment with different ways to display them before mounting and framing them – you can pick up frames of all shapes and sizes cheaply from charity shops.
Top tip: When mounting your photo’s make sure you’ve got a large, clear space to work in, where there are no small children or pets, so that you don’t end up losing precious photos that may be irreplaceable. Use a small blob of blu-tack to keep each photo in place so they don’t get damaged.
