Spoil Your Mom with These Mother's Day Activities

The knee-jerk instinct for Mother's Day: run to the grocery store for a bouquet of flowers and a mass-produced Hallmark card. While most mothers appreciate sweet-smelling flowers and sappy greeting card sentiments, these are ephemeral, generic sorts of gifts. For a more memorable thank-you-for-giving-birth-to-me occasion, try something a bit more unexpected.

It's the little things
Before the big day, pay extra-special attention during conversations with your mother, listening for any subtle hints as to her secret (or not-so-secret) wants and wishes. Maybe she's run out of her favorite perfume or worn her slippers to smithereens. Buy some of the scent for her and sneak it onto her vanity, with a ribbon tied around it, and place a pair of brand-new slippers at the foot of her bed. Maybe she needs a little help with the cleaning or yardwork. Wash her dishes and mow the lawn. Help her plan and plant the spring garden. Perhaps she's just lonely and would love nothing more than your undivided attention for one full day, interruption-free. Offer her your company and turn the cell phone off.

Pamper the woman!
There are few women alive who would object to a holiday of pampering. But rather than tucking a spa gift certificate into her Mother's Day card, take charge of the situation and spoil her yourself. The time you spend together will prove far more memorable than a fancy, impersonal massage or mud facial. Start the day off right with homemade breakfast in bed. Make sure to have her favorite coffee or tea on hand, and plenty of it. You might go out for lunch or dinner to her favorite eatery, or prepare a picnic. Watch the movies she loves most or go see a play, chat about days gone by, haul out the photo albums and let her tell you again, in minute detail, about the day you were born, sans complaint.

Sweet nostalgia
What memories are most precious to your mother? Was it that ice cream place that you frequented during your growing-up years, or the park where you first learned how to ride a bike? Go buy ice cream there, and ride bikes together on the park parths. Take her somewhere special, to a place important to the two of you. Reenact a golden day from the past, moment by moment.

As far as gifts, if you're crafty, make your mother a scrapbook containing photographs of the both of you, from your earliest years to the present day. Using a computer and some know-how, you could create a mix CD containing the songs she loves most with a homemade CD cover, or put together a compilation of home movies, with her as the star. If your mom is the cooking sort, type up all of her tried-and-true recipes and bind them together professionally -- her very own cookbook.

One and only
If nothing else, use Mother's Day as an opportunity to thank your mother for all that she has done for you -- the lullabyes and Band-Aids, the encouragement and unconditional love -- and make her feel like the unique, cherished and important person that she is. Cater to her every whim. She deserves it.