Giving the wrong gift is the mother of all mistakes

Looking for 50 ways to thrill your Mammy? From flowers to flour power, the choices for Mother’s Day gifts are endless.

If finances allow, you could splash out on a week in the sun or a pampering spa weekend at home. Not every Mammy’s boy or girl can afford such extravagance, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t dig as deep as you dare. After all, love hurts.

There are alternatives like a beautiful bunch of flowers, some reassuringly expensive chocolates, a shopping gift card or a voucher for a haircut or beauty products.

Be careful, though, particularly when it comes to beauty enhancers.

Your mother may not take too kindly to receiving a truckload of diet pills to trim belly fat or some fancy new cream “guaranteed to remove that unsightly moustache”.

Remember, your mother is as beautiful on the outside as she is on the inside so anything that suggests otherwise will not go down well.

If the mother you are celebrating also happens to be the mother of your children, special care is needed. The kids must be encouraged, ie forced, to show appreciation of the woman who helped raise them. That won’t leave Himself off the hook though. He cannot get away with a bunch of raggedy daffodils bought hastily after midnight at the filling station.

Neither is this the time for a joke book, novelty t-shirt, or for getting ‘I Love Mum’ tattooed on your — particularly if you’re over 40.

Above all, never come home after a night with the lads, brandishing a snackbox and a crushed Cadbury’s Creme Egg. I have it on good authority you will be met by the mother-of-all scowls and the slap of a wet dishcloth.