Mother’s Day this year means getting creative from afar

NEW YORK (AP) — Treats made and delivered by neighbours. Fresh garden plantings dug from a safe six 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.”

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 US Among Pinterest’s 335 million users, searches for “Mother’s Day at home” have jumped by 2,971%, the company said.

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