Janice Miller, contributer to the popular blog Safety Today, loves when her family treats her to a special vegan lunch on Mother's Day. I've invited her to share some of her favorite tips for keeping your mother's day vegan and vegetarian friendly!

If you’re looking for ways to celebrate Mother’s Day with your mom’s veganism or vegetarianism in mind, it’s important to not only avoid animal products in your meals but also think about how to reduce the ecological footprint in the choices you make about gifts. Not only that, but a true vegan Mother’s Day celebration will create opportunities for your mom to better live her vegan lifestyle for many years to come. Here are some tips!

Make Mother’s Day about her connection to the Earth through gardening

When it comes to vegan-friendly hobbies that have a wide range of benefits, both on a personal level and on a larger, environmental, scale - there’s really nothing that comes close to gardening.

Spending the day with your mom helping her in the garden is a wonderful way to show you care. If your mom doesn’t have a home garden and has always talked about having one, this can be the year you help you achieve that dream. Put on your work clothes and get digging. Helping your mom do the hard work and setting her up with a garden plot ready for planting is a great gift. You can also buy/help build items that beautify her garden space, like birdhouses, bird baths, butterfly cages, and more.

Gardening not only helps to reduce your ecological footprint, but it assures that the vegetables you eat are locally grown, without pesticides and other environmentally unfriendly practices. In terms of overall wellbeing, gardening is a known stress-reducer, a source of moderate exercise, as well as a way to get out in the sun and soak up brain-boosting vitamin D.

Shower her with eco-friendly flowers and chocolate

If you want to go the traditional route and shower your mom with flowers and chocolate for Mother’s Day, it’s important to make sure than your gifts adhere to her vegan lifestyle. When it comes to flowers, this means doing all you can to make sure they are harvested in an eco-friendly manner.

“Buying locally-grown flowers is a sure-fire way to know you’re not buying imported flowers, therefore consciously reducing your carbon footprint. When you’re at the florist, ask where the particular flowers come from, or buy from a local farmers market,” notes one suggestion.

You may also want to consider buying “in season” flowers, as growing flowers out of season requires more natural resources. Instead of traditional cut flowers, you may want to consider buying a beautiful potted plant.

Buy her an eco-friendly bag and fill it with vegan accessories

Look for vegan, cruelty-free faux leather bags, or opt for canvas or other bags made from recycled materials. Fill the bags up with vegan beauty products, like ones made from animal-free sources and ones that were not tested on animals. A truly vegan gift bag - both inside and out - is sure to please your mom this Mother’s Day.

Cook her a delicious vegan or vegetarian brunch spread

A Mother’s Day celebration just isn’t the same without Mother’s Day brunch, and you can make the day special by helping her prepare a beautiful, vegetable-based meal for the whole family. Start here for some great vegan recipes like Hoppin John tofu scramble, vegan denver omelettes, and chickpea flour pancakes. Do your research and get creative. There are hundreds of vegan brunch recipes out there that will satisfy the whole family.

This Mother’s Day, make sure that you focus on your mom’s vegan or vegetarian lifestyle choice by buying gifts and participating in activities that strengthen her ties to the Earth and reduce her ecological footprint.