Mother’s Day is nearly upon us.

And I am dreading it.

So why the dread you ask.  Because along with Mother’s Day comes the Mother’s Day Stall at the kids schools.

Mother’s Day Stalls – a place for kids to use their mum’s money to buy cheap, ugly and/or useless crap for their mothers.

I’ve been recruited to help with the Mother’s Day Stall at The Boy’s school.   Whilst I have been asked to help out, I was not asked to advise on nor comment on the quality of  the gifts on offer.

I know what you are thinking, they can’t be that bad.  After all, all gifts are selling at just $5.00, so you can’t expect a diamond tennis bracelet or an iphone.

But yes, the gifts are that bad.  Amongst the offerings are:

- a face washer folded and sewn to look like an evening bag (complete with faux chain handle), with smelly  soap inside.  Unfortunately, in this case smelly does not mean nicely perfumed.

- an ugly pot holder folded into a triangle and sewn up to be used as a scissor holder, comes complete with a $1.00 pair of scissors.

- small organza beaded bag with smelly soap inside.

- ugly kitchen towels

- coffee cup with very small whisk

Coffee cup and whisk sounds ok eh?  Yea, unless you have a whole cupboard full of coffee cups, plus more stored away in a box somewhere, and you don’t even drink coffee or tea.  And how many uses can you think of for a 10cm whisk?

The Girl’s school is taking a different tact to the whole Mother’s Day Stall idea.

Instead of providing gifts for the kids to purchase the kids are to bring in a gift to be sold at the stall, and then spend their money to purchase the stuff that other kids have brought in.

This could be a great idea, lots of nice gifts sent in by mothers who would be delighted to receive such a gift.

But no, I highly doubt that that will be the case.  The note that came home states “you might have a gift in a cupboard that mum might not need anymore” and “your neighbour, aunty or grandma may be cleaning out their cupboards and find a treasure to sell”.

So I read this as really meaning “here’s a chance to re-gift all those unwanted crappy gifts that you’ve received in the past”  But of course that also means that the gifts on offer for The Girl and her friends to buy will be someone else’s rejects.   Imagine that lovely potpourri sachet or souvenir place-mat set that grandma received in 1979 and considered too special to use so she put it in her linen cupboard where it has been sitting for the past 30 years.  Oh Joy.

Either way, I’m screwed.

Yet, either way, come Sunday, I will claim to one and all that the gifts bought from the Mother’s Day Stalls were “Fantastic, Just What I Wanted and Needed”.  And of course the kids will be highly praised for choosing excellent gifts.

And then the gifts are going straight to the pool room.