Christmas gifts for mum – fun and unique ideas based on what kind of mum she is

On the first Sunday of Advent, mum sits at the kitchen table with the back of an envelope, writing out everyone's wish lists. The kids want this and that, someone needs new mittens and grandma wants nothing, as usual. At the very bottom is mum's own line. It says “peace and quiet” and, in smaller letters, “for you lot to stop squabbling”.

It's an honest answer, but it's not a shopping list. This guide helps you find a Christmas gift for mum that's for her – not for the kitchen, the laundry room or the family. The ideas are deliberately unusual, in the same spirit as the rest of our unique Christmas gifts: a bit unnecessary but well thought out, and things she wouldn't have bought herself. You won't find any jewellery, jumpers, scented candles or spa sets here.

Three clues before you choose

You don't need to ask mum what she wants. You need to listen out for three things during the autumn:

1. The free hour. What does she do when nobody needs her? Does she go out, sow seeds or do a jigsaw? That's her real interest, not just what she has time for.
2. “I really ought to.” What does she say she ought to do, but never does? It's often something that takes time or peace and quiet, and that's exactly what she's short of.
3. Before us. What did she do before the kids came along? Did she play an instrument, sing, take photos? Whatever disappeared during the toddler years is often what she'd be happiest to get back.

Write down the answers on your phone when she says them. The clues lead to the groups below, and gifts from the kids and gifts for a mum who lives far away work whichever clue you find.

The mum who grows things

The windowsill is full of cuttings in jam jars, and in January she starts browsing seed packets. Give her something that extends the season or turns the growing into a project.

• A mushroom growing kit in a box. A box of substrate where oyster mushrooms grow out of a hole in the side, on the kitchen worktop in the middle of winter. She harvests something fresh in January, and the first harvest can become a creamy mushroom soup.
• A bokashi bin for her raised bed. Two buckets with a tap and a bag of bran that turns coffee grounds and peelings into soil improver. The contents ferment for two to three weeks and are then dug into the soil. It's more fun than it sounds: she gets her own soil factory for the spring. In many Swedish municipalities, home composting of food waste, including bokashi, has to be registered with the environmental department, so check the rules where she lives.
• A seed archive. A box with dividers for each month, small paper envelopes and labels, so she can save seeds from her own tomatoes and flowers. The gift gets better every year, as the archive fills with varieties nobody else has.
• A grafted family tree. If there's an old apple tree at grandma's or on a family farm, a grafter can put cuttings of that variety onto her own tree. One tree can carry several varieties, and it's a way of preserving an old variety. The gift is a card with a promise and a grafting course or a grafter booked for the spring.
• Metal plant labels. Labels she engraves the names on herself, instead of plastic sticks that fade after one summer. It's a small gift, but it gets used in every pot and every row.

The mum who's outdoors in all weathers

She heads out at six before anyone else is awake, and the rain doesn't stop her. Give her something that turns the walk into a discovery.

• A tree of her own to follow. Choose a birch, a bird cherry or an aspen along her usual walk and give her a card with the tree's location and a map. Every spring and autumn she sees when the leaves burst out and when they turn yellow, and she can report it to Naturens kalender, a Swedish national project where ordinary people's observations are used in research. People who follow the same tree year after year are called phenology wardens. Every Valborg (Walpurgis Night), on 30 April and 1 May, the project also takes a snapshot of how far spring has come across the whole country.
• A hydrophone. A small underwater microphone that connects to a phone or a pair of headphones. Lower it into a stream or off a jetty, and a whole world under the surface starts to make noise. When lake ice cracks during big temperature swings, mostly in autumn and spring, it sounds like a laser gun in a sci-fi film. The hydrophone is lowered from the shore or the jetty, not from the ice – if she still wants to go out on the ice, the rules are in our guide to ice safety.
• A min-max thermometer. A window thermometer that shows the night's lowest and the day's highest temperature. For the one who always wants to know “how cold did it get last night?” and competes with her sister up north.
• Pocket binoculars. Small, lightweight binoculars that fit in a pocket, so they're always with her. The woodpecker in the pine, the deer at the edge of the ditch and the birds far out on the lake suddenly come close. Take them along on one of our advent outings.
• A hi-vis vest with her own slogan. A vest with a print the family comes up with, “I'm out. You'll cope.” or “Ask someone else”. It's visible in the November darkness and makes the neighbours smile.

Safety on the ice: If she goes out on the ice, ice picks must always be with her, worn high around the neck and on the outside of her clothes, so she can get them out with gloves on. The picks should have a plastic whistle without a pea, which can't freeze up. Ice picks aren't always enough to get out of a hole in the ice, so don't go alone – companions with a throw rope can help.

The mum who never gets left alone

She starts her coffee at eight and finishes it cold at eleven. Someone always needs something. Give her something that protects her time and her things.

• A mug that keeps coffee hot. A mug with a warming plate underneath, which keeps the drink hot while she's interrupted for the tenth time. The coffee is as hot at eleven as it was at eight.
• A time-lock jar. A jar with a lid that won't open until a timer has run out. It was invented for people who wanted to stay off the sweets and is mostly sold for phones these days, but it's perfect for her own chocolate. The kids can't get at it, and neither can the rest of the family.
• A puzzle portfolio. A folder or a mat where a half-finished jigsaw can be rolled up or folded shut and put away. The jigsaw on the dining table no longer has to be cleared away at every dinner, and no cat gets the chance to lie down in the middle of it. Add a jigsaw she picks herself.
• Mum's hour in the calendar. The family's shared calendar gets a recurring hour each week where it already says who's looking after the kids. The gift is a card with the first slot booked. It sounds small, but it's the only thing on the list she actually asked for.

The mum who says she doesn't need anything

She has what she needs, and she doesn't want anyone spending money on her. Then it's time for gifts that aren't things to look after. More ideas like these, for everyone who says no thank you: Christmas gifts for someone who has everything.

• An empty house. One Saturday morning the rest of the family heads out, and the house is hers. Nobody calls, nobody asks where anything is. Write the date and times on the card, and stick to it.
• A reunion with old friends. The friends from sixth form, the choir or her first job that she always says she ought to get in touch with. Track them down, set a date and book a table, and put the invitation in the parcel. The hard part is organising it, and that's exactly what you're doing.
• The rematch. Was she the best in her class at table tennis, chess, frisbee or a card game? Challenge her with the whole family one Saturday in January: hire a hall, get out the board or draw up the course, and buy a challenge trophy. In all likelihood, she'll keep it.
• The thing she gave up. The guitar in the wardrobe gets new strings and a tune-up, the sewing machine gets serviced, or the choir's music folder is wrapped up with a sign-up for the spring term. That's the “before us” clue turned into a Christmas gift.

The mum who lives far away

When the kids are grown up and mum lives in another town, the distance becomes the hardest part of Christmas. Give her something that means you talk more often.

• The same book, twice. One copy for her and one for you, with a note: “We'll call when we've read up to page one hundred.” It becomes a book club for two, and the calls are about something other than the weather.
• Same seeds, same day. A packet of seeds each and a date in March when you sow them at the same time. Send photos every week and see whose seedlings are winning. Works especially well if she's also a mum who grows things.
• The dates already booked. The tickets or the dates for the next visit, printed out and wrapped in an envelope. It's the gift that shows the least under the tree, but the one she'll look forward to the longest.

Christmas gifts for mum from the kids

What the kids make themselves means more than most things you can buy. An adult helps with the practical side, but let the words and ideas be the kids' own.

• A map of mum's places. The child draws a map of the house, the garden or the neighbourhood, with mum's places marked: where she drinks her coffee, where she always finds the mittens, where she sits when she reads. An adult writes the child's own names for the places on the map. The map is fun today and gets better every year it's kept.
• A letter in gingerbread dough. Roll out a large sheet of gingerbread dough, cut out letters and write “Best mum” or something only you understand. It can be eaten, and that's the idea.
• Bird feeders for her window. The kids make bird seed cakes for winter and hang them outside the window where mum drinks her coffee. Every great tit becomes a greeting.
• Ice ornaments for the front steps. Frozen wreaths and discs with berries and twigs that hang in the garden and glitter in the sun. How the kids make them is explained under ice ornaments.
• A star made of sticks. A star the kids make from sticks they've picked up off the ground, for mum's window. See star made of sticks for how to tie it together.
• A day through the kids' camera. The child borrows the phone on a day off and photographs everything mum does, from her morning coffee to the bedtime story. Print the best photos and make a small album with the child's own captions.

A tip about batteries: Small gadgets like timers, lights and musical cards often contain button batteries. A battery like that can get stuck and cause very serious injuries if a small child swallows it. If a child has swallowed a button battery, or you suspect they have, call 112 immediately and ask for Giftinformation (the Swedish Poisons Information Centre). Do not try to make the child vomit. Check that the battery cover is screwed shut, and read more about keeping batteries away from the little ones in light when the power goes.

What we left out

Jewellery, jumpers, scented candles, perfume, creams and spa sets aren't on this list. They're not bad gifts, but they're what everyone thinks of first, and they're often a worse version of what mum has already chosen for herself. Nor are gifts that are really for the household, like a new frying pan or a vacuum cleaner.

Gifts for a partner, with time for two and your own in-jokes, are in christmas gifts for her. If you're looking for something for dad in the same spirit, see christmas gifts for dad. And more ideas for a Christmas with more time together and fewer must-dos are collected in christmas with kids.