Mother's Day During Lockdown

With wall-to-wall coverage of Covid-19, it is possible that you have forgotten tomorrow is a special day; Mother's Day.

This year, Mother's Day will look a little different. Instead of crowded local restaurants and family gatherings, you may be spending Mother's Day stuck at home with or without your mother. This means we will need to get creative about how we celebrate and show our gratitude. Here are some ideas to show your mum you appreciate her during lockdown.

If your mum is within your bubble:

Breakfast in bed – an old favourite, just make sure you time it with her awakening so she can still have her Sunday sleep-in.

Recreate her favourite restaurant at home with takeout – it's quite possible your mum has done her fair share of cooking during lockdown and thank goodness for takeaways during level 3! Hopefully, you can still order from her favourite restaurant; be it brunch, lunch or dinner, then do away with the packaging, and create a restaurant theme in your own home with décor, music and dinnerware. Or if you're watching pennies, cook your own menu and create your own themed restaurant.

Clean the house – the house quickly becomes a tip with us spending more time at home. Help your mum out by doing jobs like the washing, vacuuming, cleaning the kitchen and bathrooms.

Gardening – if the weather complies, why not tackle some weeding or pruning?

Get outdoors – think of somewhere different from your usual bubble walk and drive to a nice location within your half-hour radius, keeping to the social distancing rules, of course.

Plan a home spa day – Just go through your cupboards and see what you have. Even if you don't have nail polishes on hand, you could have a foot bath together and talk. Or Google search face masks using kitchen ingredients.

Take a trip down memory lane by going through your favourite photos together – have every family member choose their favourite and share that memory.

If your mum is outside your bubble:

A Virtual Mother's Day Visit – co-ordinate with your siblings and invite everyone to a virtual get-together. Using video-conference tools such as Zoom, House Party or Facebook Messenger, send a message to your mum to log in at a certain time. Have your siblings and participants log in a few minutes before, so that when your mum joins, she is greeted by everyone! Have everyone say, 'Happy Mother's Day!' as soon as she joins the virtual space.

Buy her an e-book – does your mum love to read books? While you cannot go out and get her a new book, Amazon Kindle app is the ideal gift for her. Gift her a subscription and she can download the Kindle app on her smartphone, which would give her access to Amazon's vast library of books.

Streaming service subscription – we all love to binge watch movies and TV series on streaming platforms. The Covid-19 lockdown has only pushed us to dive deeper and explore more shows and movies. So, this Mother's Day, gift your mum the subscription of a streaming site that has content best matching her taste. Once you do, you can stream a new movie or a TV series together.

A Homemade Movie Gift – with a little extra time on our hands lately, making a movie for mum is a great gift idea. There are several apps available for this. Your kids will especially love this idea, as most are familiar with You Tube videos and can try to copy their favourite styles. Add pictures and video messages from you and your kids to the film. You can share the video with her through social media or send it through a shared file.

Surprise her with some sneaky gardening or DIY – you may not be in your mum's bubble but, if she doesn't live too far away, you could still carry out some outdoor jobs on her property for her.

Order a late gift online – by now, it's too late to order gifts online to be delivered in time for Mother's Day (but you have the perfect excuse if you usually forget). However, if the mum in your life doesn't mind an IOU on May 10, many businesses are doing vouchers ready to be used post-lockdown – a perfect way to support local and give your mum something to look forward to.