Christmas Gifts for Someone Who Lost Their Mom

Moms usually run Christmas: the dinner, the traditions, every cousin on the card list. When she is gone, the season can feel wrong in a hundred small ways. The best Christmas gift for someone who lost their mom keeps something of hers in the room. Our gentlest pick is her own recipe, printed in her handwriting on a tea towel for the kitchen.

Hear a Songbond memorial song

This one was made for another family. Yours would carry her name and your stories.

11 Christmas gift ideas for someone who lost their mom

1. Her recipe, in her handwriting, on a tea towel. Photograph one of her recipe cards and have it printed on a linen towel. Pick the recipe she made every December. Usually $25 to $50.
2. A family cookbook of her recipes. Collect her recipes from siblings and aunts, add a photo of her at the stove, and print a small book. It keeps the recipes from being lost. $30 to $60.
3. A song in her memory ($39.90). You share her name, the things she always said and what Christmas looked like in her house, and Songbond turns them into an original song. It can hold the details a card never has room for.
4. An afternoon baking her Christmas cookies. Bring the ingredients and her recipe, and bake them together. It is often easier to talk about her with flour on your hands.
5. A cushion made from her sweater. A seamstress can turn one of her sweaters or blouses into a pillow they can hold. Ask the family first which piece to use. $50 to $120.
6. Her handwriting on a bracelet or necklace. Take "Love, Mom" from an old birthday card and have it engraved. Many jewelers can work from a photo of the card. $60 to $200.
7. Her favorite flowers on Christmas Eve. Poinsettias if she loved them, or the roses she grew in the yard. Add a card that says you are thinking of her too. $40 to $80.
8. A clear ornament holding a piece of her. Fill a glass ball ornament with a scrap of her scarf, a button from her coat or a line cut from one of her letters. $15 to $30 with supplies.
9. A photo of the two of them they have never seen. Ask relatives to search old albums and phones. Frame the one nobody knew about. $20 to $50.
10. Her perfume or hand cream. Scent brings a person back faster than almost anything. For some it is a comfort and for others it is too much, so ask someone close first. $20 to $90.
11. Hosting Christmas dinner this year. If she was the one who hosted, offer your house, or cook the meal at theirs. The empty kitchen is often the hardest part of the day.

How to choose a gift for a grieving son or daughter

Think about the part of their mom they miss most in December. For some it is her cooking. For others it is her voice on the phone, or the way the house felt on Christmas morning. Match the gift to that.

• If they are a cook: the tea towel, the family cookbook or an afternoon of baking.
• If they are a keeper of things: the cushion, the ornament or the engraved handwriting.
• If they are overwhelmed: hosting the dinner, or flowers with a short card.

Keep one of her traditions going

The first Christmas without Mom brings a quiet question. Who makes her stuffing now, and who sets out the nativity scene she put on the mantel every year? Nobody has to keep every tradition. But keeping one, on purpose, can help. Offer to take one job off their hands and do it her way, with her dish or her ornaments. Tell them ahead of time which one you are taking, so it feels like a choice and not an accident.

If you want to remember her in a song

You can create a song in memory of their mom with her name and the stories you both remember. It is ready within 24 hours, and express delivery takes about an hour if you need it before Christmas Eve.

Also in the Journal: tribute songs for Mom and the first Christmas without a loved one.