Expressing to Mom just how much you appreciate her can stump even the most clever gift-givers. To help with the last-minute quest for the perfect gift, we reached out to some of our favorite mother-and-child partnerships to see how they celebrate the holiday in their family.
Emily and Joan Sugihara
Creators of one of our favorite on-the-go essentials, Baggu‘s Emily Sugihara and her mother Joan have been crafting together since Emily was a toddler, now regularly collaborating on new bag designs. For the enterprising duo, Mother’s Day means handmade gifts and personal touches. Emily tells us about making a small storybook about their family when she was 10, told from the point of view of her then two-year-old brother Nicky. With clever captions for photos of family members, pets and favorite items, the keepsake charmed her mother to tears.
Joan fondly remembers a Mother’s Day when Emily prepared lunch for the entire family, as well as a gift she gave her own mother. While in college, Joan (a consummate seamstress) crafted a Boho-style dress out of an rose-colored Indian batik bedspread. The gift delighted her mother, who wore the dress for the rest of her life.
Allison and Rhonda Kave
Peddling pies with more flavor than those found south of the Mason-Dixon Line, First Prize Pies‘ Allison Kave attributes much of her baking knowledge to her mother Rhonda, who also delights in the dessert business with her shop, Roni-Sue’s Chocolates. You can catch the both of them on weekends at the new Hester Street Fair, where this Mother’s Day they’ll be featuring Mother’s Day items and goods to benefit breast cancer in their shared booth.
The Kave family celebrates Mother’s Day by planting annuals in the yard, a tradition that formed during Allison’s youth. They also give gifts, which usually involve activities than can be done together, such as a cooking class taught by professional pastry chef Carole Walter or brunch at the James Beard house (where the above picture was taken last year). While Allison recalls the experiences, Rhonda remembers a symbolic sculpture of a mother and daughter that she says is “one of the loveliest Mother’s Day gifts” her daughter ever gave her.
Akaash and Jasleen Mehta
Contemporary Indian artist Jasleen Mehta moved to NYC with her son Akaash when he was just a baby. Her passion inspired her son, who created “a special sketch or drawing” every year for his mother on the holiday. Now an assistant director at Eden Fine Art gallery in NYC, Akaash first work at Sotheby’s and Christies, using these experiences to give his mother the ultimate Mother’s Day gift.
For the 30-year retrospective of Jasleen’s work in India last summer, Akaash helped to curate the exhibition while also creating the 100-page catalog for the show. This massive task included sifting through interviews and news articles from the past and present, getting some of her major collectors to add additional write-ups, and going through all the images and slides of her paintings from the late ’70s to the modern day for an incredible tome chronicling her entire career—”something she has never had before.”
