20 Unconventional Mother's Day Gifts

Shopping for a gift for your mom for Mother's Day can be very challenging, especially if you want to do something new or unexpected. Even if you live close enough to spend time with your mom on Mother's Day, it's still the busiest day of the year for the food service industry, and every restaurant is overflowing with stressed out servers, baby strollers, and kids squeezing ketchup packets onto their new white jumpers, so you might want to steer clear of the brunch scene altogether. Here are some unconventional Mother's Day gift ideas that will raise the bar and earn you favorite child status for life.

I was talking to a friend while researching this piece, and she made a great point. She said, "Unconventional gifts are hard because moms like conventional stuff." A lot of people tend to think of their mothers as having a lifestyle with a hard shell, evolved into its final form with no room for adventure or newness, but that's honestly pretty silly, because moms are just grownup women who took a few months to cook up at least one kid in utero.

It's never too late for a little adventure, so check out these 20 unconventional gifts for mom!

1. A beginners yoga class

You're never too old to learn how to connect your breath, body, and mind. Give your mom the gift of sun salutations this Mother's Day by introducing her to your favorite way to actively unwind. It will open up a new world of strength and flexibility.

2. Mother of Dragons Cookie Jar

Game of Thrones Dragon Egg Canister, $30, Think Geek

Celebrate your mom with this homage to the Mother of Dragons. This jar is perfect for storing dog treats for your mom's little monsters... or cookies for humans are fine too.

3. A Little Motivation In Jewelry Form

Motivate Wrap, $21, Momentum Jewelry

Perfect for the active mom, these yoga-style wrap bracelets from Momentum Jewelry come in 10 colors and more than 30 sayings. Your mom will always know that her kids believe in her when she wears her Motivate Wrap.

4. A Whole New Universe Of Healthy Snacks

Graze Snack Box Subscription, $12 per box, Graze

With Graze snack boxes, your mom can customize her healthy snack revolution based on her personal tastes. Avoiding gluten or hate raisins? Graze has options just for that! Break the monotony in your mom's snack routine with these boxes of eight tasty treats delivered straight to her door.

5. An Underwear Overhaul With Skivviebox

Skivviebox Subscription, $59 per month, Skivviebox

So, this is an unconventional gift, and would go over with varying degrees of surprise, depending on your relationship with your mom. But, you can rid your mom's underwear drawer of frump with a subscription to Skivviebox, customized specifically to her taste.

6. A Spotify Subscription

Spotify Premium, $10 per month, Spotify

Or if sexy underwear are too risqué for your mom, get her The Beatles, David Bowie, and Earth, Wind, & Fire with a Spotify subscription that lets her rock out to her favorite music from the car, living room, and even the shower (with the right equipment).

7. Baseball Tickets

Take mom out to a ballgame this Mother's Day and fill up on hot dogs and beer. This gift is more traditionally associated with Father's Day, but moms like sports too!

8. A Lazy Girl Beauty Supply Kit

It's time to introduce your mom to the glory of your laziest beauty routine. Dry shampoo, BB Cream, some bronzing luminizer to trick people into believing you've been outdoors, brow gel, matte lipstick, and big sunglasses round out the quickest getting ready system of all time.

9. A Salsa Dancing Class For Her And A Partner

Bonus points if your mom's partner has two left feet.

10. Swimming With Dolphins

Everyone I know that has done this has said it was an experience of a lifetime. Treat your mom to an up close meet and greet with the puppies of the sea!

11. An Actual Puppy

Speaking of which, if mom is in the market for a best friend, it would be pretty unconventional for you to surprise her with a real puppy under the hypothetical Mother's Day tree! Disclaimer — your mom might possibly kill you, or she might be overcome with joy.

12. Or Pamper The Puppy She Already Has

If your mom is anything like mine, she probably gets really excited when she gets to take her prized pooch to the dog spa. Treat mom and pup to manicures!

13. S'ip by S'well

S'ip by S'well, $25, Amazon

With all of the yoga and chasing of her brand new puppy you've got your mom doing already, you'll want to make sure she stays hydrated! Get her a whole bundle of these awesome water bottles, available at Target.

14. A Flatterbox

Flatterbox, $49 (and up), Flatterbox

If you have a few siblings scattered across the country, a Flatterbox is a cool alternative to a card to tell your mom how much you love her. Participants log onto its website and contribute compliments or good tidings to your mom's Flatterbox, and the box is shipped to her with each message printed on its own cute postcard. Feel free to get a little silly with it with compliments like, "Your legs are more or less the same length!" or "I will be eternally grateful for your lasting lessons in procrastination!"

15. An Appointment With A Deep Cleaning Professional

Use an app like Cleanify or become a scrubbing machine for a day! Make sure someone that's not your mom cleans all the weird places that get neglected like the underside of the stove, behind the refrigerator, and the back of the pantry shelves.

16. A Blue Apron Subscription

Blue Apron, $60 (and up), Blue Apron

Broaden your mom's home-cooking horizons with a subscription to the ridiculously convenient service Blue Apron. They do the shopping, you do the cooking. Choose from a selection of exciting, seasonal recipes you'd like to try and sit back with the knowledge that the groceries and instructions for each meal will be delivered to your door.

17. A Place For Mom To Kick Up Her Feet

Flutura Pouf, $198, Anthropologie

Get your mom a trendy pouf ottoman for her to kick up her feet on her special day.

18. Wine Of The Month Club

If your mom likes wine, she'll definitely like a new bottle of wine delivered to her every month. If you're lucky, she might even let you have a taste.

19. Lessons To Learn Something New

What's the one thing your mom has always talked about wanting to do? Does she want to learn French, start playing the piano, or start a side-job building furniture out of reclaimed wood? Facilitate your mom's dreams coming true by springing for the lessons to make them possible. How many years did she schlep you to dance class?

20. Maternal DNA Analysis

mtDNA Ancestry Test, $199, Family Tree DNA

So this is pretty cool and so 2016 — a DNA analysis that will tell your mom the history of her mothers, grandmothers, and great grandmothers, and so on. Your mom (and you, by extension) will be able to track her maternal lineage and see the migrations of her direct female ancestors around the globe throughout human history. That is so. cool.

Images: Warner Bros. Television; diamondmountain/Flickr; ThinkGeek; Momentum Jewelry; Graze; Skivviebox; Spotify; Pexels (6); jessicalearish/Polyvore; jtbradford/Flickr; Target; Flatterbox; internetsense/Flickr; Blue Apron; Anthropologie; Family Tree DNA