What moms want: tips on gift-giving

BY MIKE SHERWIN, STAFF WRITER

Cards? Flowers? Massages? Jewelry?

What exactly is it that mothers want for Mother’s Day gifts?

Local Jewish moms seem to be in agreement that it truly is not the gift itself, but the sincerity and effort of the gift-giver that makes a great Mother’s Day gift.

“I’m a sucker for sentimental,” said Susan Bosse, coordinator of the Check it Out breast cancer awareness program at Hadassah St. Louis. “If I were to advise anyone on what to get their mom for Mother’s Day, I’d definitely go for the sentimental.”

Bosse is the mother of two sons, two daughters-in-law and three grandchildren (“some of everything,” she says).

“There is a specific Mother’s Day gift that does stick out in my mind,” Bosse said.

“The first year that I was a grandmother, when my son and daughter-in-law had twins, for Mother’s Day, they gave me each of the little ones’ hand prints, molded in plaster and framed for me. It was wonderful.”

“It was so cute,” Bosse recalled. “And of course, I cried. But I’m an easy mark when it comes to crying if it comes to my kids.”

For Anne Tessler, who works at Temple Israel, this will be the first year that she will be celebrating Mother’s Day with her husband, Michael.

Tessler has two children, and now, two step-children. Her advice for Mother’s Day?

“The best Mother’s Day gifts are something that the children work on and make for you,” Tessler said.

“Nothing expensive, just something from the heart,” Tessler said.

Sandra Nissenbaum, the mother of three grown children, four step-children and ten grandchildren, said her ideal Mother’s Day present is simple.

With a daughter and two sons living in Arizona, Florida and California, “the biggest gift for me is when they come to town and I get to see them,” she said.

“If I could do it all over again, I’d never send my kids away to college, because if they go to a sunny state, or an intellectual state, they don’t come back.”

The consensus, it seems, is that moms are looking for thoughful gifts from their children.

But what about gifts from husbands?

“That’s a different story,” Bosse said with a laugh. “He needs to go for the jewelry.”