Celebrating Mother’s Day during a pandemic will be a first for us all, but there are creative ways to show moms how much we love and appreciate them, even now, when everything’s gone virtual. Try these 12 ideas to show your mother, your best mom-friends, and all the other important moms in your life how special they are.
Leave breakfast on the doorstep. If ever there was a year to indulge mom with breakfast in bed, it’s this one, so we definitely want to encourage that. But if the kids don’t live with mom full time or they miss Grandma and you’re pining for your usual Mother’s Day gatherings with her, try leaving her breakfast on the doorstep! Fill a basket with bagels and all the fixings, assorted muffins, mini quiches—whatever her morning favorites are. If Grandma lives too far away to drop off treats, there are several companies offering Mother’s Day baskets delivered right to her door.
Set up a virtual walk with her best friend. Contact the best friend to set up a time she’ll be available, then surprise Mom with a video call from her bestie and let the two of them take a virtual walk together. Of course, it doesn’t have to be her best friend. The key is to surprise her with a special connection to someone she hasn’t been able to see in a while, whether it’s a relative, a friend, or even her own mom.
Have a cleaning party without her. Do you know what moms really love? Time alone and a clean house they didn’t have to sweep, mop, or dust themselves—especially during quarantine, when they’re probably extra tired of cleaning everything. When asked what they wanted most this year for Mother’s Day, 27 percent of moms said alone time was at the top of their list, according to a recent Today Show survey, so this year let Mom do her own thing while the family gathers for a cleaning party. Assign duties to every family member (even preschoolers can help wipe counters and organize messy spaces) then surprise her at the end with a big reveal. If you really want to knock her socks off, promise to keep cleaning the house twice a month for the rest of the year!
Have a self-care day for her at home. This year, moms who would ordinarily appreciate a gift card to an actual spa might enjoy a relaxing day of self-care (already one of the most popular words in 2020) instead. From mani-pedis to drugstore facial masks, bubble baths, and even at-home massage tools (this two-pack of massage rollers costs only $11.99 on Amazon), there are myriad ways to treat mom to a spa day without leaving the house. If her kids are young enough to be living at home—but old enough to have great hand-eye coordination—they could even help pamper her with a relaxing massage, a new nail color, or a fragrant shampoo treatment.
Make her a bouquet of flowers. Whether you opt for a DIY paper bouquet or you pick flowers from your garden or neighborhood, taking the time to “make” the flowers will mean way more to mom than a fancy delivery. Plus, paper flowers will last a lot longer than just a few days. If your mom loves flower arranging, take it a step further and sign her up for a virtual Mother’s Day Master Class with Alice’s Table.
Host a virtual brunch with her favorite foods and games. Try ordering in from her favorite restaurant and eat with friends and family via Zoom or FaceTime. It’ll feel like an extra treat because there’s no cooking or cleanup. If the weather is nice, make it a backyard picnic where she gets to sit back and be waited on all day.
Send her on a virtual trip. If mom loves gardens, invite her to join you for a virtual tour of some of the world’s most beautiful gardens, including Claude Monet’s garden in Giverny, Normandy, and the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden, in Papaikou, Hawaii. If mom is more of a music lover than a gardener, New York’s Metropolitan Opera is offering free digital shows every night at 7:30 p.m. The “Nightly Met Opera Streams” can be found on the Met’s homepage and remain available for 20 hours. You can also invite her to a virtual walkthrough of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris as well as many others who have placed exhibits and collections online. You can take her on a 24-hour tour of Paris with the experts at Skyscanner if you want. The two of you can even go “outside” with incredible virtual tours of some of America’s best national parks.
Play Mother’s Day trivia. This is great if you’ve got a big family with grandparents, aunts, and cousins. Create a set of questions about all the moms in your family ahead of time (Where was she born? What’s her favorite food?), then schedule a Zoom or FaceTime call with any faraway family members—or keep it more intimate and just play in the living room. It’s a sweet way for the family to bond and celebrate their queens.
Sign her up for a virtual subscription. With memberships starting as low as $14.99 per month, Bluprint offers access to a slew of online arts and crafts classes and creative projects, from cooking and quilting to knitting and photography. The streaming service is powered by NBC Universal and features experts from a wide variety of fields. There’s even a special Family section filled with classes and shows designed to be enjoyed with your favorite people.
Send her a message. Forget store-bought cards this year and instead go for the handmade variety. Moms love receiving heartfelt notes and drawings from their kiddos and other family members. Want to really make a statement? If you’re weathering the pandemic in the same house, put all those lovely sentiments, memories, doodles, and things you appreciate about Mom on Post-it notes instead of in a letter, and stick them all over—either out in the open where she’ll see them all at once for a big impact, or hidden throughout the house in places where she’ll get to find them all day long.
Make a video or slideshow celebrating mom. This is a fun project that even little kids can participate in within little help, or that distant relatives can all contribute to from afar to honor Grandma. Ask everyone in the family to choose a few pictures or videos that capture what they love about mom, then have one person pull it into a slideshow or video. You don’t need fancy software to do it, you can create slideshows and videos with free software from Smilebox, Animoto, or even PowerPoint.
Put together a special memento box. There will never be a Mother’s Day quite like this one, making it the perfect time to make a time capsule (though mom might enjoy it more if you call it a memento box). From a shoebox to a container from your latest Amazon shipment, any box that closes will work. Let kids cover it with drawings and doodles or wrap it like a gift, then fill it with notes, trinkets, pictures, and memories of mom and Mother’s Day 2020.
However you celebrate, we hope this sparks some inspiration for showing all the important women in your life a little love. And don’t forget to share this list, maybe with a note about your favorite ideas—surely your family already has something amazing planned, but a little reminder never hurts!
