My Mother - the contented. (Mother's Day help!)

In My Humble Opinion
1

My mother. Mom. I love her to pieces. Normally, I’d never come to a message board to ask for ideas on what to get my mother. I mean, she’s my mother, right?

Lord love a duck. I don’t have a clue what to get her.

I wrote to my father and my brother, and they are both at a loss. Here’s the deal: I have already got her portraits of myself and my husband, framed. This is part of her gift. I just don’t know what else to get her.

The No List:

Can’t have stuffed animals or novelties - she’s got allergies and these just aggravate that.
Won’t use bath/body products. Also has some sensitivities.
Rarely uses perfume, and I already got her her two favourite kinds over past Mother’s Days/birthdays. They are still pretty full.
She rarely wears jewellry - not because she doesn’t have any, she just has “enough” for her, and wears delicate necklaces and/or earrings for special occasions. Also, sensitive to some metals.
Doesn’t need candles/potpourri type things - has enough, also has some sensitivities. (notice a trend, here?)
I don’t dare buy her clothes; our styles and ideas of what would look good on each other are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Even if I am positive she would love it, it is not her style. Not a safe gift. I’ve only managed to get that one right on two occasions. I’ve failed about fifty other times.
No junk food. She might nibble at something once, then pawn it off on my father and brother.
Can’t take her to dinner. Besides it being my Dad’s thing, we live 3000 miles apart.
Books, DVDs, music - I don’t have a clue what she has or doesn’t have. She won’t tell me. Dad is clueless.
Nothing dirty or suggestive as gag gifts; she’s quite… well. It’s not something she’d like to get from her kids!
Nothing too tourist-y, like things with “Seattle” written all over them. I’ve already sent her the mandatory deck of cards, fridge magnets, mugs, and calendars, so when people visit, she can subtley display them, and when someone asks, she can beam proudly, “Yes, I have a daughter in Seattle.” Anything else would just be overkill.
I am thinking of getting her a luggage set for her birthday - that’s out for now.
Can’t visit. I can leave the country if I wanted to right now, but no guarantees I’ll get back in. I love my mother, but I’d like to come home afterward.

When I ask her, she responds, like so many mothers before her, and so many who will after her: “Anything old thing is fine. I don’t need anything.”

Does anyone have any unique, interesting (and quick!) suggestions for Mother’s Day? I normally wouldn’t ask, but I am really at a loss. I want to get her something special. Last year, with her normal gifts, I handmade her a rosary, using rose quartz and white pearls, and she loved it. That was special (yeah, it helps that she’s Catholic, too :stuck_out_tongue: ). I’m looking for suggestions under $50, because we try to keep everybody equal (father’s day, mother’s day, birthdays, etc) so no one “one-ups” the other one.

It’s the age old question, Dopers: What do you get the mother who has everything? :confused:

2

My mom keeps asking for world peace. Feh! sez I, As if I could ever afford that. She’s getting hand-knit socks this year, but she’s not getting them until June because I’m ordering the yarn tomorrow. Tulips are her favorite flower and she loves socks. It seems a good idea, so far.

My sister tends to buy my grandparents gift certificates to their favorite restaurants or movie theaters or tickets to plays. Could you get her a gift certificate to her favorite restaurant large enough to cover dinner for both her and your dad? Could you get her a gift certificate for Amazon or her favorite catalogue? I know some people think gift certificates are tacky, but I think they’re the ideal gifts for hard to shop for people.

Are there any family traditions you can build off of? Favorite games? A special memory? Do you have a photograph of you and your mother you could have enlarged and framed? Favorite books from your childhood? There a lots of little things you could get to show her how much you appreciate her being your mother.

3

AMAZON GIFT CERTIFICATE! Beeeeeeeee-rilliant!

The framed 8x10 of me (her loving daughter :smiley: ) and my husband (her loving son-in-law :cool: ) will be the “special” gift. Amazon gift certificate so she can get whatever she likes. I kept thinking a gift certificate would be great, but I can’t get a certificate to her favourite restaurants (they live wayyyy out in the boonies), and she doesn’t have a favourite local store. But she does seem to like Amazon.com.

I could kiss you! Why didn’t I think of that? :smack:

And now, I will start thinking of what to get her next year.

(Ideas are still welcome!)

4

What do you mean by “No junk food”? Would a selection of nice Seattle-oriented food be doable? My relatives keep asking for Chukar cherries, Fran’s chocolates, and those spice rubs from Tom Douglas. (Makes Christmas shopping easy but boring.)

Another possibility might be a cookbook from a Seattle restaurant you like.

5

Ahh, besides the junk food thing… my mother has this strange aversion to flavour. Forgot to mention that. She did enjoy the Tully’s coffee “gift pack” (made it myself :smiley: ) I got for her for Christmas, but she doesn’t drink coffee that often, and she still has lots of hot chocolate.

I got her some Applets & Cotlets before, too, and some Almond Roca (though we get that out there) and heck, even Frangos (my ex’s suggestion)… all handed off to my father and brother. And she doesn’t like salmon. Steak rubs… like I said, strange aversion to flavour. Her potatoes are lucky to see butter. All her meat is baked. No salt. She eats these dried up, chewy pieces of chicken and steak. (Yeah, she’s a skinny little thing).

sigh Food is a tough one. The only thing she’s shown any interest in is Krispy Kremes (she hears about them on TV, and wants to know for herself what all the hype is about), and they tend not to travel well… and there are none of those around her, so a gift certificate-type deal is out of the question.

She’s a tough bugger to buy for. Aw, crap, and another thing I just remembered about the food thing, she’s recently had to go in for all these allergy tests because of her allergies acting up so badly, and discovered she was allergic to many, many foods. I can’t remember anymore what’s good and what’s bad. The woman is allergic to everything! :frowning: :mad:

6

What about sending her flowers?

7

I was thinking about getting my mother a coupon for a massage or something. Ask your father if there’s a spa in the area and get her a coupon for a massage or a facial or a pedicure or something along those lines.

8

My mom is kind of the same–she doesn’t need much, and she doesn’t want much, so I’m running out of ideas for things to buy for her. She’s usually happy with whatever I get her, though.

Does she like plants? If she does, you could send her a set of a nice pot and some seeds.

Does she have any hobbies?

9

Woooo! I win! My mother’s enchanted with the idea of Amazon, but refuses to use her credit card online at all. It’s probably for the best, since she’s a book fiend like I am.

Moms are fun. It’s like an episode of Star Trek with every holiday. Do you bring the diplomatic gift with shiny bits or do you appeal to the humanity of the species? I mean, they’re definitely hominid, but normal people don’t have eyes in the back of the head, super-sensitive hearing, or ESP.

10

Allergies.

There are no spas nearby, and even if there were, my Mom is a little weird about “strangers” touching her. She got a manicure once a few years back, and she hasn’t stopped complaining about how awful it made her feel. She’d rather do her own. :frowning:

She’s pleased with her garden right now, and has firmly stated “No more, no less” is perfect right now - she’s at a happy “garden work” level. Her indoor plants just keel over and die, and makes her feel depressed. And FTR, she’s got a shelf full of gardening books, indoor and outdoor - she just can’t seem to keep indoor plants alive. She’s killed a cactus. :smack:

The only hobby I can think of is that she began scrapbooking… but it’s fading fast for her. She likes it less and less. She’s a fad hobbyist, to be sure. She has a brand spanking new sewing machine, used a few times and put away… she’s shipping all of her knitting needles and old yarn to me, since I love knitting and she did it once. For 20 minutes. In the 1960s. I’m almost serious. She made my younger brother a nice sweater, started making me one, and gave up halfway through. It’s been sitting in the basement for years. It’s all right, though, since I outgrew it when I was 12. :dubious:
She’s really not purposely this contrary. She’s just a very simple lady with very simple tastes, and a lot of allergies. She comes home from work every night and watches her favourite shows until she falls asleep. They have TiVo, so she doesn’t miss her shows when she dozes off anymore. They just got a big screen TV because they built a guestroom/rec room, and they’ve been buying handfuls of DVDs at once so they could watch them. She doesn’t need anything to decorate the new room, since she used everything they’ve had stored away for years to decorate it. Including an electric fireplace! Anything extra would just be clutter. My father takes her to “the city” every weekend without fail, where they go shopping, mostly for groceries. Sometimes she putters in her little garden. She likes cooking, but has everything she wants in the kitchen. She doesn’t like gadgets, not even something simple like an egg timer, or *salt and pepper * shakers. She rarely uses salt - and pepper - are you nuts? That’s flavour! :eek:

Normally, she even hates gift certificates (as my husband tentatively brought up to me this morning when I told him about Amazon), however, she doesn’t like the kind you physically take to a certain store (we’ve all bad experiences with our local stores, either because they charged a tax on the certificate, or suddenly refusing to take them with no warning - my poor grandmother ended up having to pay for her birthday meal when I gave her one to her favourite restaurant :mad: I took her out myself later, but that’s not the point of a certificate!). The online type for something like Amazon should be fine, though, since it means she can do her favourite thing: go to her favourite site, point, click, and order. And wait for someone to deliver the goods to her, not the other way around. Also, I think I’ll tack on an extra $10, so she can actually get something for $50, and not $40 plus shipping.

I used to think my Mom was the easiest person in the world to buy for. Now I wonder where I ever got that idea!

11

in my family the latest gift fad has been netflix related. you can buy mum x months of a netflix membership.

very, very, popular.

12

Hmmmm. If your mother’s goes from hobby to hobby, how about a gift certificate to a craft store and/or a book about a new hobby or a guide to multiple crafts? I’ve been fascinated by stained-glass work, but have been reluctant to get into it; you can also find kits to do things like make your own bath salts, candles, etc. Who knows? You could spur the next hobby.

My own mother’s less than an hour away, and she, too is pretty content with life. She also hates crowds. Here’s what I decided to do this year: on Saturday, the gentleman I’m dating and a good friend of mine whom she also likes are going to take her out to Ohiopyle, a state park reasonably near here, have a picnic and go hiking. It suits her better than mere flowers or brunch at an overpriced, crowded restaurant. Now if only I can convince the gentleman that the bugs won’t eat his food before he does! :wink:

CJ

13

Siege, those are interesting ideas. I’ll keep that in mind next time around… I don’t know of any craft stores near her, but I could ask her where she shops for stuff she’s working on at the moment… or find stuff myself, too, at craft stores that are available out here that she doesn’t have! Aha! I’m getting somewhere now!

I ended up wandering around aimlessly in the malls… I’m still getting her that Amazon gift certificate, but I just wanted to see if there was anything that jumped out at me. Hubby and I went into JC Penney, and lo and behold, I found her a gift! A cute little handbag, beige and pink (she loves light, baby pinks), perfect for summer holidays or trips to the beach - not too big or clunky, as my mother likes petite things, not too flashy, as my mother is very mild and hates to draw attention to herself, lots of inside pockets, because she loves lots of inside pockets, and it even had a little pounch attached for her cellphone, which she carries everywhere. A little handbag. Because no woman can have too many handbags! She doesn’t normally buy any for herself until her old one has become ratty, and the men in the family would never think to get her one as a gift - they wouldn’t know where to start. There’s only one other woman in the family: My grandmother, and she takes Mom out for Chinese the week after Mom’s special days (since Mom will already be going for seafood with Dad on that day).

A handbag. I’m brilliant! :smiley:

14

You are brilliant - that’s good. I was going to say flowers (perfect last minute gift), a gift certificate for a dinner with your dad, or a nice piece of art for her walls. But a handbag - good call!

15

This is interesting to me. My aunt and uncle moved to Washington, Olympia to be specific, when I was a little kid. Every Christmas, and I mean every, they would send my grandmother Applets and Cotlets and Almond Roca. To this day, they still send those to her.

Are these things Washington specialties or something? I know we can buy them at any drugstore here in Indy, so I don’t get it. (Plus Applets and Cotlets are grrooooooooss :smiley: )

I always give my mom and grandmother hanging baskets every Mother’s Day. It’s the only thing I know for sure that they like. And they are easy to pick out and not terribly expensive.

16

Oy, my mom’s got a ton of the same issues, very simple, allergic to damn near everything that’s traditionally girly, and there’re four of us scrambling for gift ideas at every giftable holiday. Dad’s always been easy, there was always a tool thingy on his wish list that we could go in together on or Mom would tell us what clothing stuff he’d like, now that he’s pretty full up on all tool things, I buy him booze. Anything in an interesting-looking bottle preferably bottled far far away and he’s a happy camper.

Ok, call me goofy but here’s what I got my mom this year. She saw the commercial and remarked favorably, but never orders anything online or on TV. Dad has promised to cooperate by throwing out orphaned tupperware pieces when she’s not looking, too.

That and dinner on Sunday and I’m done! :smiley:

17

You know, I’m not sure. I just asked my husband and he just shrugged and says he assumes so. We can get them at any drugstore where I’m from, as well. Maybe we think it tastes better from the source? :dubious:

I’m not from here, either, so it might be a tourist-y kind of thing for me to do, but the people here aren’t any help, because they will suggest it, too, especially if I ask about sending them something uniquely Seattle-y or Washington-y. Er. Or local…-y.

I like Applets and Cotlets, though, but I will eat almost anything. Hell, I like those Big Turk chocolate bars - purple goo covered in chocolate. :smiley:

18

I’m saving the Amazon gift certificate for her birthday, which is coming up in July.

She loves the handbag. She emptied out her normal purse and transferred everything to the new bag. She’s beyond thrilled with this thing, and she loves the little cellphone bag attached, because she always loses hers in her other purse. beams with pride and brilliance :wink:

The pictures made her all weepy, but very happy, too. That was a for-sure hit, anyway.

And, oddly, I included a little Jack in the Box antenna ball, because I’d sent them one as a joke for Christmas (the one with antlers and a red nose), but Dad ended up actually putting the thing on the car, muttering, “only for my daughter”. I must not have clarified the joke well enough. They didn’t know who Jack was, since they don’t have Jack in the Box over there (Mom thought he was a snowman). So Mom says Jack has grown on them, and they wanted a new, non-Christmas antenna ball. So I got her a normal one and stuck it in her handbag. She keeps gushing over it. They have a satellite dish, so they tuned in to Komo 4 and finally saw a Jack in the Box advert. Now she’s in love with Jack. He’s now riding proudly on their car antenna.

My husband gave me a :dubious: look over that, but I say “Shhh! Brownie points.” I was more brilliant this mother’s day than I originally thought. :cool:

Thanks, everyone for the suggestions, because they will all come in handy in the future. I made it this year… but who knows what lies ahead next year? cue Twilight Zone music Stay tuned for the next episode of “Contented Mother: The Mild and Mysterious!”

Dun dun DUN! :eek: