Mother’s Day this year means getting creative from far away

Treats made and delivered by neighbors. Fresh garden plantings dug from a safe 6 feet away. Trips around the world set up room-to-room at home.

Mother’s Day this year is a mix of love and extra imagination as families do without their usual brunches and huggy meet-ups.

As the pandemic persists in keeping families indoors or a safe social distance apart, online searches have increased for creative ways to still make moms feel special.

Absent help from schools and babysitters, uninitiated dads are on homemade craft duty with the kids. Other loved ones are navigating around no-visitor rules at hospitals and senior-living facilities.

Some medical facilities are pitching in by collecting voice and video recordings from locked-out relatives when patients are unable to manage the technology on their own.

In suburban St. Louis, Steve Turner and his family hope to FaceTime with his 96-year-old mother, Beverly, but they plan something more, too. Her birthday coincides with Mother’s Day this year.

“We’re going to create a big Mother’s Day-birthday banner signed by the kids and grandkids who live here,” Turner said. “She loves butterflies and we’ll draw some on. We’re working with the home to find a place where we can stand outside a window so she can see us.”

Anna Francese Gass in New Canaan is hunkered down with her husband and three children and will enjoy her usual Mother’s Day breakfast in bed of rubbery eggs, slightly burnt toast and VERY milky coffee. But the day won’t include her own mom, who lives nearby.

“I ordered a bunch of daffodil and tulip bulbs online, and me and the kids are planning to plant them in her flowerbed. She can supervise from the window. I just know it will put a huge smile on her face,” Francese Gass said.

In Alameda, Calif., 23year-old Zaria Zinn is sheltering at home with her parents and younger sister. Knowing how much their mother loves and misses traveling, they’re turning their house and neighborhood into a trip around the world with help from decorations and virtual tours online.

“We made a DIY passport for her and we’re creating stamps for each location,” she said.

Their itinerary: Machu Picchu, Paris and Iceland, with some DIY spa time and a Hollywood-style movie night.

Making the most of Mother’s Day in isolation is top of mind for Google search users. The company said the term “Mother’s Day gifts during quarantine” recently spiked by 600% in the U.S. Among Pinterest’s 335 million users, searches for “Mother’s Day at home” have jumped by 2,971%, the company said.

These days, virtual experiences are all we have, so Lisa Hill in Portland, Oregon, decided to embrace that notion for her 79-yearold mom in Stuart, Fla., after she met a cooking instructor while volunteering to prepare meals at a shelter.

Hill has been cooking alongside Lauren Chandler, who has taken her usual in-home cooking sessions online with a twist: She’s throwing in a free 45-minute session for clients to donate.

Shelly Solomon via AP From left, Steve Turner and his sisters, Carla Paull and Lisa Fishman, hold up a Mother’s Day banner emblazoned with images of their mom, Beverly Turner, in front of her assisted living facility in Ladue, Mo. They were “practicing” how their Mother’s Day surprise will look on the holiday.