In this edition of The Gift, we share 9 perfect Mother’s Day gift ideas. Plus: flowers that won’t wilt and an extremely giftable body lotion.My mother is, among many things, an excellent gift-giver. I’d like to think she passed along some of her impeccable taste to me. What she undoubtedly imparted is the fun that can — and should — be had in giving a great gift.Just last week, she texted me and my sister before heading over to my brother’s house, where she was tasked with delivering our joint birthday gift to him: three gold vermeil stacking rings with tiny birthstones and diamonds, one from each of us.“Should I present the rings in boxes? Or! Should I put each one in plastic Easter eggs in a basket with eggs with candy. Very tempted by the latter. 😀”That’s my mom’s gifting style in a nutshell: creative, thoughtful, perfectly tailored to the recipient (my 34-year-old brother, the baby of our family, immediately started shaking the eggs and tearing into the candy), and a little bit ridiculous.Her other major tenet is one I have written about before: Give something you’re envious of yourself. So I was particularly proud of my recent birthday gift to her, this stunning spiral-bound watercolor book of twelve lightly sketched bouquets. The illustrations are lovely — a far cry from the mass-produced paint-by-numbers of my youth — and the conceit feels fairly novel. You get to paint your own thing, but with easy-to-follow coloration cues that act as invisible training wheels.I coupled it with these beautifully toned Japanese paints, which flow and mix like watercolors but have the impressive vividness of acrylics. And yes, I caved and bought myself a book, too.Whomever you’re celebrating next Sunday — from sisters to aunties to yourself — here’s some inspiration from around our newsroom:Why use a plate when you could sit your soft-boiled egg atop its own little throne? Newsletters editor Brittney Ho and her sisters gifted their mom these extremely darling egg cups painted with flowers that look even better in real life. “She likes to send pictures of her breakfast to keep her girls in the loop,” says Brittney, “and it always makes me smile to see one of these guys in the background.”The best gift that editor Hannah Morrill ever gave her mom was this regal piscine pot in coral — the exact color she always painted her nails. “Something about its burbling pouring sound really tickled her fancy,” says Hannah. “She has dementia now, and the vase has become a talisman for the version of her I treasure most. Beautiful, silly, and full of joy.”After newsletters editor Erin Neil’s parents separated, her mom reverted to her maiden name — a long and arduous legal process. As an informal first step, Erin gifted her personalized stationery with her first and new/old last name. “I know it meant a lot to her as she began her next stage of life,” she says. “And, not to pat myself on the back, it kind of existed at that perfect intersection of useful and pretty.” Erin went with this fun toile print, but any of the stunning sets in our brand-new guide to stationery would make a lovely gift.When editor Rory Evans’ oldest sister became a grandmother last year, Rory tracked down the Gyo Fujikawa versions of Mother Goose and Fairy Tales and Fables that she used to read to Rory and their other sisters when they were little. I’m a sucker for any kind of sentimental gift that requires sleuthing — like Wirecutter’s Haley Jo Lewis bidding on her grandmother’s old yearbook on eBay. Many of the ideas in our guide to the best personalized gifts might strike a similar tone.Speaking of (replicable!) sentimental hits: Years ago, newsletters editor Isoke Samuel digitized all the family photos that were sitting in her parents’ basement, and made an iMovie (“yes, I was in middle school”) of the best ones. Her mom cried tears of joy. This tech-novice-friendly photo frame could help you pull off something along the same lines.Newsletters coordinator Allyson Waller also found success creating art around a memory: a custom piece of artwork of the new home her parents moved into after she graduated high school. “She really put her all into making a great home,” says Allyson, “and was really touched I commemorated it that way.” We’re big fans of this decidedly non-AI-generated service for creating fast, accurate, and eminently charming custom house portraits.And for head of social Julia Bush’s mom, a retired second-grade teacher, who “transported nearly her whole library of classroom books home”: these Haricot Vert earrings featuring a charm of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. (The Eric Carle classic is unfortunately no longer available, but there are nearly 200 other whimsical charms to choose from.)Lastly, because anyone who does any kind of mothering deserves something sparkly: Never underestimate the power of a glittering piece of jewelry.And if you need one more endorsement for that watercolor book: My friend, a mother of a three-year-old, also snagged one for herself, hoping for one single quiet moment of self care. “Ugh,” she texted me a few weeks later. The three-year-old had discovered the book. Her large-scale abstract works across each and every page were actually quite avant-garde, we both agreed.According to my mom’s golden gifting rules, that might makes it the best Mother’s Day gift of all: one that is coveted by two different daughters, three decades apart.
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