Celebrate the moms in your life (and perhaps yourself as well)!

After all they've done for us, moms everywhere deserve to be appreciated on a daily basis, rather than waiting all year to get a card and some flowers.

Think back on the many things, big and small, your mother has done for you over the years . . . from baking cookies or sometimes letting you choose the radio station on a car trip, to hemming your dress in time for the prom. Isn’t it time you started making those same gestures in the other direction? We think so! It is never too early, or for that matter, too late, to make a parent feel special.

Mother’s Day has a long and storied history, stretching back to its earliest roots in the post-Civil War era. What began as one woman’s attempt to help heal the grief of mothers who’d lost sons on both sides of the fight and then became another woman’s attempt to honor her own mother, has morphed over the years into more of a commercial event. Isn’t it time we got back to the idea of making moms feel treasured and appreciated?

In these pages, you’ll find idea after idea that will encompass a wide variety of activities to get you thinking about how to make your mom feel special, even if you don’t live close by. Go ahead and remember to buy that card and bring over some flowers on the actual Mother’s Day, but in the meantime, here are some ways to make every day count . . .