A Unique & Meaningful Christmas Gift for Mom: A Mother + Daughter Book Club
Give Mom something uniquely personal this year – special time with you doing something you both love! A Mother + Daughter Book Club is a fun, thoughtful way to spend time together. Bonus: it’s easy to do, even if you live far apart!
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The holiday season is approaching, bringing with it the same dilemma it does every year: What meaningful gift can I give my mom, the woman who has everything?
- It should be unique because she is the most distinctive woman you know.
- It needs to be meaningful because she is important to you.
- It must bring you closer together because you want to savor every moment with her, even though you’re separated by miles.
It gets harder every year to find a gift that reflects how much our moms mean to us. More “stuff” simply doesn’t fill the bill anymore!
The solution? The Mother + Daughter Book Club!
Give your own mother (or adult daughter!) a fun gift of time together, whether she lives next door or on the next continent. Everything you need to know to successfully launch your book club is organized in 4 easy-to-follow steps. I’ve even created a free quarterly book club planner to help you get started!
Don’t miss the all-important W·O·L Twist, with great ideas to enhance your book club experience — why let the main characters have all the fun?
Read on — Mom’s favorite gift awaits!
4 Easy Steps To Organize Your Mother + Daughter Book Club
Quick Tip: Think outside the relationship box for your book club. Perhaps you have a favorite aunt or a close friend whose time and wisdom you value? Take this idea and make it work for you!
1. Present It With Flourish
This book club you are starting is a gift, so treat it as such. You are gifting your mom a bit of yourself and your time, but it is also a gift to you. This time together is a thing of value and a thoughtful presentation will reinforce its importance to both of you.
- Wrap it up. Choose the first book you’ll read together and buy it for her. Write a lovely card explaining why you want to do this fun book club with her. Wrap it all up in a beautiful package!
- Present it. Make the presentation special and explain why you want to spend this time together. Even if you can’t be together during the holidays, your words and the effort you’ve put into pretty wrapping will speak volumes when it arrives in the mail.
2. Decisions & Details: Where, What, & When
Are you geographically close enough to meet in person for your book club? Lucky you! Simply pick a place and time that works for you both. Coffee, cocktails, or cuisine — this is your time together, so make it special!
If you can’t get together in person, there are still loads of ways to make this time unique. We learned during the pandemic we can do almost everything online. Decide what you would do together if you could and replicate it. Make or buy that fancy coffee, cocktail, or cuisine, and enjoy it together in front of your screen (Zoom, Facetime, whatever your video service of choice). Not quite as exciting, perhaps, but still fun!
This is key: Please do not limit yourself to the typical book club venues (i.e., all those coffee, cocktail, and cuisine examples!). The Words on Location Twist — experiencing places and activities inspired by your book — makes your book club unique. Keep reading for some fun examples!
3. Your Mother + Daughter Book Club Needs Books!
There are as many different ways to select your books as there are readers, so be creative. Get your bookish juices flowing with these ideas:
- Pick a theme: Choose books about food, travel, historical fiction, memoirs, strong women, etc. Your theme can be for just a few books or as long as you’d like.
- New releases only: Choose a brand new book released in the past few months/year — you get to choose how you define “new.”
- Backlist books: Select an unread title from a favorite author’s backlist.
- Unread books you already own: Choose an unread book from your bookshelf and make a bit of progress climbing your very own Mt. Must Read (a.k.a. your To Be Read Pile!).
- Explore your hobbies: Choose books that will inspire you to do more of what you want to do. A food memoir can send you to a cooking class, an outdoor adventure can pack you off on a camping trip, an Italian setting can enroll you in that language class you’ve been eyeing!
- Reader’s Choice: Take turns choosing the book at the top of your own TBR.
- Choose a monthly genre: Design a yearly reading guide — or use the one I’ve created for you!
These are just a few ideas to get you started. Like all readers, I love hearing why people choose to read the books they do. Would you tell me in the comments which titles you are selecting?
Elevate Your Literary Game & Go from First Meeting to Bookish Besties with the
Ultimate Book Club Blueprint!
4. To Question or Not To Question?
How formal or informal you want your discussion to be is completely up to you. To ensure there is plenty to talk about, you can mark passages and write down questions as you read. Or you can simply share how you felt about the book and then pour more wine — it’s your book club and the only rule is that you both enjoy it!
Now the Fun Part: The Words On Location Twist!
Words On Location is all about enhancing your reading experience with off-the-page fun, so don’t forget to find that something special to bring your book club to life, aka the W·O·L Twist. Jumpstart your creativity with these suggestions:
- If your book is set in an area near you, spend a fun day out exploring a place from the story.
- If the setting is too far away but something similar is accessible, go for it! Visit the oldest bookstore in your area, or tour a historical site.
- Learn more about anything that enticed you while reading, taking advantage of in-person and online opportunities. We may be weary of so many virtual experiences, but no one can argue the wealth of interesting options available!
- Find many more examples for your W·O·L Twist in this post!
The only rule for selecting your Words On Location Twist is choosing something you will both enjoy and can do “together,” whether that means physically together or connected virtually!
Titles To Launch Your New Mother + Daughter Book Club
Choosing the books you’ll read together can be both fun and daunting. To make it more “fun” and less “daunting,” I wrote two blog posts with over 32 books that would be great reads for your book club. And because one can never have enough options, I’ve also curated a special list in my Bookshop.org store. Just click below for a plethora of options!
The Happy Ending
Download my free quarterly book club planner here to help you flesh out all your great ideas. You now have all the tools and inspiration you need to give your mother the best Christmas gift ever!
Organize your book club with my free W·O·L Book Club Quarterly Planner
Shared book fun is better book fun! I would love to see your Words On Location Twist — use #WordsOnLocation and find me on Instagram @wendy_staton.
Pin this to your bookish boards!
This post has been updated. You can read the original post here.
