My husband, Clif, and I publish a web magazine called Wolf Moon Journal, and I just posted a piece written by Don Robbins, a retired school teacher who lives in “a dome” on Mellow Hill in Sydney, Maine. Don’s piece is called “Horizon Days,” and it’s about a present he made for his mother, who is in her nineties and doesn’t need any more gewgaws or artwork. As Don puts it, “To the contrary, she has been zealously divesting herself of many of the decorative items that crowd her small apartment.” 

But on special occasions such as Mother’s Day, we want to do something for our mothers (and fathers, too!) even if they don’t need any more clutter in their lives. So Don put together a booklet with the title Look Ahead to Horizon Days, with lists of favorite activities for him and his mother to do throughout the year. Don writes so well and so charmingly that rather than go into any detail about his project, I’m just going to provide the link to his “Horizon Days” piece. 

As my mind quite naturally turns to food, I started thinking about how much fun it would be to put together a Mother’s Day booklet with promised gifts of food for each month. This could be a wonderfully flexible gift. If the budget allows, and Mother lives some distance away, the food gifts could be delectable treats ordered from the Internet. (Chocolate, of course, immediately comes to mind.)  If Mother lives within driving distance, the best thing to do would be to make and deliver a special homemade treat once a month. There are lots of possibilities, ranging from bread, spiced nuts, and, when I think of my own mother, an apple crisp, which she just loved. Frosted heart-shaped sugar cookies for February. Strawberry shortcake for July. Marge Standish’s delectable blueberry cake for August, and for this cake it is always best to use wild Maine Blueberries. Main meals, too, of course. Scalloped scallops was another of my mother’s favorite dishes. And cheddar cheese soup, a perfect gift for a winter month. 

Don decorated his booklet with his own original artwork. For those of us who are not quite as talented in that department, collage would be a snappy alternative that could even feature pictures of the promised treats on each page. 

My own mother died two years ago. Nevertheless, it gives me pleasure imagining what kind of booklet I would have made for her and remembering the things she liked to eat. 

Finally, this is a gift that could be expanded to other gift-giving occasions—birthdays, Christmas, even anniversaries. Homemade treats can fit into even a very frugal budget, and some of the most delicious ones, say, bread, hardly cost anything at all to make. What this gift involves is time, that will-o’-the-wisp element that nobody, especially Americans, seems to have enough of. 

But what better gift to give?