Thoughtful gifts
They keep putting off the warmth, the quiet, the hour that's just theirs — give them the reason to take back what they deserve.
Bath products
Your body has been waiting for this all week. The shoulders, the neck, the tiredness. This is what unknots them.
Aromatherapy
Coconut-soy candles, hand-poured. Roller blends carried in pockets and purses worldwide.
Natural skincare
Botanicals infused directly into the oil. USDA organic. Multi-oil carriers. Therapeutic aromatherapy.
Mindful living
Affirmation cards with a 30-second body practice on every card - not just words. Tapestries that change how a room feels, not just how it looks.
Ask your mother what she wants for Christmas and she'll say nothing. Every year around now, mothers answer that question for themselves on Reddit, and in one thread on exactly this, a mom spelled it out: "if we say 'don't buy me stuff,' we really mean it." What she wants is a phone call. "I treasure half an hour on the phone hearing you talk about your job more than a bottle of perfume or a fancy candle." We sell candles. She's right anyway, and the phone call is on this list.
The other mothers in those threads say what they'd take instead: nicer versions of things they won't buy themselves, things that get used up, and time. Someone in the same thread found their mother's clues by going through her purse: empty perfume testers, the empty packet of one particular candy. It worked every time. The gift was a card for a home store, for "whatever in this house needs to be replaced", because a skillet would have offended her.
So stop asking. Go and look. We'd start in her bathroom.
Next time you visit, use the one she uses. If the tub is full of storage boxes, she doesn't take baths, and nothing we make for the bath is for her. Skip to number 4.
That towel is a bath pillow she never got around to buying. Our Bathtub Pillow is a mesh cushion about 14 inches square, with a rolled headrest and seven suction cups on the back. There's no foam inside, it goes in the washing machine, and it hangs from its own hook to dry. In 2020 a customer gave one to their mom for her birthday, and three weeks later she gave someone a bath pillow for theirs. Abigail gave one to her mother and wrote back later: "She's been using it for a few months now, and it's held up extremely well." Of the things we make, it's the one we'd send. It costs less than the tray, and there's no rim to measure.
Skip it if her tub is stone or textured. The cups hold on acrylic, enamel and most standard tub walls, not on stone or texture. Look twice at a freestanding tub, too: Tyler's wife "found the pillow too thick to lean into while in our standing tub".
The Bamboo Bathtub Tray rests across the rim and holds a book or tablet, a glass and a bar of soap. Hannah gave her mom the tray with our pillow, sold as a pair, for Christmas: "The stand works great for the book she is reading, and she likes the multiple spots to hold different things." Give it with a paperback you've already read, your notes in the margins.
Skip it if a glass shower door is in the way or the rim is too wide. Measure first: it adjusts from 29.4 to 41.3 inches.
She already knows how to do this, so give her more of it. Mom's Wind-Down Ritual is five pieces in our printed gift box on kraft shred: a Lavender Chamomile candle, a lavender bath bomb, a lavender bath soak, lavender body butter and a bar of Oatmeal Milk & Honey soap. It's the one we'd ship straight to her. Skip it if she can't stand lavender. Its one review so far is from Maureen: "After 30 years in an old house I finally had my bathroom renovated."
In a Reddit thread with more than 2,000 comments about what people were giving their moms, one of the most upvoted answers was new bath towels, "including some big soft bath sheets", for a mother still using the ones the poster remembered from childhood. We don't sell towels. Buy them anyway.
A mother in another thread put the rule better than we can: the right call is "nicer versions of things she won't buy herself."
Hang it where the old one is. One commenter's grandmother bought their mom a new robe every year, and since she died, their mom has only bought herself cheap ones. This year they bought her a velour one and left it out by accident when she came over to help with the baby. She spotted it immediately. She's been wearing it since.
A commenter and their mom have a deal: no gift that needs dusting. Last birthday, that meant flannel sheets.
The mother with the "nicer versions" rule keeps a list: good wool socks, gloves she can leave in her jacket pockets, and triple-milled bar soap.
The Natural Bath Bombs Gift Set is four bath bombs, one bath each, and then there's nothing left to dust. They come wrapped one by one, and we wouldn't count on a box, so wrap them yourself. Patty gave the set as "a Christmas gift for someone who has everything". Skip it if the tub is where the storage boxes live.
What your mother wraps for her friends is the list she won't give you. Call your aunt, ask what she got from her last year, and buy your mother the same thing. She already knows it's good. She just never kept one.
A commenter's sister, a mom who usually buys basic coffee, said her favorite present from them was fancy coffee: "a fun treat that she didn't feel like she had to share with her kids". Find out what your mother drinks, and buy the version she won't.
The bakery from her hometown, the hot sauce from the trip she still brings up. If it ships and gets eaten, it counts.
Don't hand her a coupon she then has to arrange. Someone about that mother's age wrote of a car-detailing coupon: "If you give me that I just have to arrange it, and if I wanted to arrange it, I'd have done so." Book the thing, and put the date in her calendar.
The most upvoted answer in that 2,000-comment thread was a commenter and their sister taking their mom to an intro pottery class, where she makes something and keeps it. She had told them not to get her anything.
One family's mom is 79, with arthritis in her feet and hands, and finds them hard to look after herself. For several years they've given her a year of monthly manicures and pedicures. Every year they check whether she'd rather have something else. She still wants this.
She won't say what she wants, but ask about the car, the gutters or the insurance company and you'll hear plenty. Deal with one. Sit on hold so she doesn't have to. If you're far away, pay someone local and send her the receipt marked paid.
If the tapes are in her closet, take them home after your next visit. There are services that do the rest. One commenter's mom is "really excited about this gift".
The mom at the top of this page would take half an hour on the phone over a candle. Make it a date, the same day every month, in both your calendars. In another thread, one answer for a mom who wants nothing began with time together: "A monthly call date."
"My favorite gift I've received is an Aura photo frame," a mother wrote in another thread. "The uploads are effortless and my daughter can upload remotely also." Load it before it ships, and get the rest of the family adding to it.
Sometimes you look and come back with nothing. The closets are half empty, and she keeps trying to hand you your old things from the garage. Believe her. You don't need us for this part.
A full page, by hand. Tell her one thing she did when you were a kid that you only understood once you were grown. "I ask my child for a card, as in, write me a letter," one mother wrote.
The one she makes without measuring. Stand next to her, measure what she doesn't, and type it up for everyone.
Someone took their mom to lunch and to a movie she'd been planning to wait for on streaming. She hadn't been to a theater in about 15 years.
A mother in her 50s, listing what she'd be thrilled to get, included a donation to the nonprofits she volunteers with. Another commenter suggested her favorite animal shelter.
Open the pillow's bag and check that the cups lie flat. In January a customer wrote, "I bought this as a xmas gift. All the suction cups are inverting right out of the packaging." Meryl's arrived with every cup bent, and "it took a few uses to be able to get more than one cup to stick at the same time." If they still won't hold, email hello@monsuri.com, because we replace items that arrive damaged or defective. When she opens it, tell her how it goes on: a clean, wet wall, every cup pressed on before the tub fills. Beth, whose pillow hadn't gone moldy after three months, takes the cups off by hand rather than pulling, and always hangs it by its hook to dry. A pillow that slides into the water on the first night is the kind of thing she'll never mention to you. In 2020 one customer who got a pillow as a gift wrote, "One of the suction cups came off and I had to sew it back on." We'd bet whoever gave it never heard.
Open the tray's box too, and run a hand along the hinged side before you wrap it. If anything's damaged, email us and we'll replace it.
The pillow comes in a black bag with no gift box. The tray comes in its own printed box with a bamboo design, and Mom's Wind-Down Ritual comes in our gift box.
Add a gift message to the order. It's free, so sign it. In 2021 Emily gave her sister one of our trays and wrote that "there was no way to leave a gift message so she didn't know who it was from". There is now. The packing slip doesn't show prices, which won't stop her from looking it up. If her objection was the money, the pillow and the bath bombs are both under $50.
If you're doing your looking on a Thanksgiving visit, that's Thursday, November 26, and you'll have two weeks: we'd order by Friday, December 11. We process orders within 2 to 3 business days and don't ship on weekends or holidays. After that it's with the carrier, so we can't promise a date, and when orders pile up we can run a few days behind. Natalie had a pillow shipped straight to her mother and never saw it herself. It "shipped in time for Christmas".
Email hello@monsuri.com and we'll send you a prepaid return label. Anything bought at full price in November or December can come back until January 31, unused and in its original packaging, so keep the bag. The refund covers the products, not the original shipping. Sale items can't be refunded, and once something for the skin has been opened and used, like the body butter, it can't come back. If you marked the order as a gift and shipped it straight to her, she can send it back herself for a gift credit. If it came to you first, the refund goes to you.
She'll tell you she loves it. You know what that's worth. In January, go use her bathroom. If the pillow is on the wall, you chose well. If it's still in the bag, you have until the 31st.
Continue your ritual
One more read. One thing for the bath.
A Lavender Chamomile candle, a lavender bath bomb, a lavender bath soak, lavender body butter and a bar of Oatmeal Milk & Honey soap, in our printed gift box.
