Mother’s day is just around the corner and I would like to do something different this year than last. Cruising around several blogs today I read several articles about gift ideas for Mother’s Day. I really agreed somewhat with these authors, yet I wanted somethings a tad different from my family.
I hope to spread inspiration in the form of inexpensive gift giving ideas that I promise will hit a home run (well…with me anyway)! Last year for mother’s day I wrote an ode to my mom. (If you missed it, you can catch up here .)
I always feel guilty around Mother’s Day for several reasons. One – I don’t think I’ve been a good daughter for my still living mother. Two – my birthday was less than a month ago. Having a late April birthday never bothered me until 17 years ago when I became a mother. I feel like there is too much cost involved in me existing during the Spring months.
Anyway, because I am frugal minded and have a conscience, I would like to offer up some inexpensive and easy gift ideas for all the kiddos and hubbys out there (mainly mine)!
Here are a few things I certainly would love (hint hint):
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- Tell your Mom you love her – in person! Never send a Happy Mother’s day message to her through email, text, phone call, or voice mail. A good ole fashioned hug around her tired and worn neck, plus a whispered I love you Mom goes a long way.
- Take out the trash – without asking for a trophy for doing so. Mom sees everything you do. There is no need to point out what you have done for her 😉
- Mop the floor for her
- Clean out her car!! Kids, you know every piece of paper, empty water bottle, broken object, and chewed on plastic “hidden” in the car. You also know how long you’ve been watching that one lonely french fry you threw slowly harden in the back window. Make your mother the happiest woman in the world and clean up after yourself! (Without being reminded or asked.) Clean your finger prints off her windows so she can safely drive at night and sneakily vacuum her carpets.
- Buy Mom some air fresheners for the car. Hubby and children, when mom shuttles you to and from sports, workouts, and competitions – where do you think your sweat goes as your back and butt magically dry on the way home? In the car seats….**shudder…Ew! If you are the sweaty culprit, perhaps it would be a nice gesture to clean mom’s upholstery for her or simply buy her an air freshener for her car.
- For one day, offer in a home-made card to refrain from asking for anything from your mother. Don’t ask her to find anyone or thing for you, what time your next game is, if anyone can spend the night, where any objects are located, the next designated time for the refrigerator to regenerate missing food, to cook you anything, which shirt looks better, to feed your dog, to discuss the unfair issues around current school discipline, or when the magic body wash fairy will return because you are out. …Just for one day, please?
- Make her brownies and keep your hands out of them 🙂
- Tell her she is beautiful. Every mother is beautiful and probably doesn’t hear it enough.
Bonus: For 1 day, avoid drinking milk straight from the container & don’t lick the syrup 🙁
- Let her drink coffee all day! Don’t judge her. After all, she’s raising you or yours, right?
- Mow the yard for her without a congressional meeting to convince you to do so.
- Offer to help her pick weeds out of her flower garden 🙂
- Offer to dig a hole for her to plant more flowers. This one is so easy guys.- Is it going to take much time or effort to dig a hole?
- Ask her to take a walk with you. Sometimes mom’s are so busy doing all the little things that she forgets to take a relaxing walk. If your mom is young, hip, or into exercise – run with her!
Whatever you do, don’t buy her chocolate. You know she can’t resist that stuff and there’s a beach vacation coming up soon.
Please enjoy some of these other great articles about Mother’s Day gift giving as well that I’ve found: WriterMom’s Blog, Oulaw Mama,
And these are just plain inspirational 🙂
***(My apologies to everyone about the odd font that appears here. Some of your blogs names are totally copy/paste-able…others, well not so much. So, I have a funky font thing going on)