It turns out the woman who fought hardest to put Mother's Day on the American calendar spent the last decades of her life trying to take it back off. Anna Jarvis organized the first official observance at Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia, on May 10, 1908, and by 1914 she had convinced President Wilson to sign a proclamation making the second Sunday in May the national day of recognition. Then the florists and the candy companies and the printed-card industry got hold of it, and by the 1920s she was filing lawsuits and getting herself arrested at carnation-sellers' conventions. She died, broke, in a sanitarium in 1948, having reportedly told a reporter that she wished she'd never started the whole thing.
I think about Anna Jarvis every May, partly because the holiday she invented now lands on May 10 again in 2026, exactly 118 years after that first Grafton service. And partly because the catalogs that arrive in my mailbox this time of year are the spiritual heirs of what she was actually arguing against, and what she wanted instead. She wanted a handwritten letter. The catalogs offer a slipper, a candle, a pearl earring, a tin of pralines. Somewhere in between sits an honest gift, chosen with care, and that is what I think most of us are after.
What follows is a working list of ten Mother's Day catalogs available through Catalogs.com, with what each is good for and a few notes on companies whose paper-catalog status has shifted in the last year or two. As always, request the print issue or browse the web edition, whichever suits you.
1. Aroma Naturals
Soy candles and essential-oil products from a California company that has been in business since the mid-1990s. Good for the mother who tells everyone she does not want a gift and then quietly lights a scented candle every evening at 7 p.m. The migraine and headache apothecary blend has a small but devoted following in my own circle.
2. Victorian Trading Company
A Lenexa, Kansas operation that has spent more than thirty years selling reproduction Victoriana, hand-tied lace, garden statuary, and the kind of teacups your aunt would approve of. Worth a candid note: as of early 2026 the company has been undergoing a restructuring and has shifted away from the traditional thick mailed catalog of the 2000s. The Lenexa retail outlet closed around 2022. You can still request the catalog and shop their site, but if your mother loved the old phone-book-sized issues, the volume has changed.
3. Time For Me
A skincare, beauty, and lifestyle catalog with a clear premise in the title. Useful if your mother is the kind of person who buys everyone else's birthday present and forgets her own. Free shipping thresholds and rotating coupons apply.
4. Limoges Jewelry
What most people don't realize is that the term "Limoges" properly refers to porcelain produced near the French town of the same name, which has been a ceramic center since the late 18th century when kaolin clay was discovered nearby. The American Limoges Jewelry catalog is not technically connected to that heritage, but it does specialize in the personalized birthstone rings, family-tree pendants, and engraved keepsakes that have become a Mother's Day staple. If you have more than two children and want everyone's birthstone on a single piece, this is the catalog to flip through.
5. Carol Wright
Carol Wright has been mailing catalogs to American households since 1972. The corporate parent, AmeriMark, went through a Chapter 11 filing in 2023, but the brand has continued to operate under new ownership and was still circulating catalogs through 2025. Practical apparel, footwear, problem-solver gadgets, and the kind of value-priced everyday clothing that suits a mother who would rather have three blouses than one. Older readers may remember the coupon books that used to fall out of the catalog; those are mostly digital now.
6. Design Toscano
Founded in 1990 by Michael and Marilyn Stopka after a trip to Europe convinced them Americans would buy reproductions of European garden statuary, Design Toscano has carved out an unusual niche somewhere between museum gift shop and Renaissance fair. Gargoyles, angel statues, suit-of-armor umbrella stands, sundials. If your mother's garden has a personality, this catalog matches it.
7. Lori's Golf Shoppe
For the golfing mother. Skirts, polos, visors, golf bags, and shoes from a North Carolina-based shop that has been online since the late 1990s. Worth a phone call if you're not sure about size, since their fit notes are detailed and the staff actually answers.
8. Potpourri
Part of the Potpourri Group, a Massachusetts catalog publisher whose brands have been in mail-order since 1963. The Potpourri catalog itself leans toward unusual home accents, personalized gifts, seasonal decorations, and the sort of small humorous items that look perfectly at home on a sun porch. A reasonable choice when you don't know exactly what to send and want something a mother will actually keep.
9. River Street Sweets
A Savannah, Georgia institution. The original shop on River Street has been making Southern pralines since 1973. Their Mother's Day gift towers and the floral tin pail of pralines arrive in nice packaging without the gaudy shrink-wrap that some food gifts come in. Order at least a week ahead in early May; the volume picks up considerably in the lead-up to the holiday.
10. Whatever Works
For the gardening mother. Hand tools, kneeling pads, ergonomic pruners, deer fencing, solar lights, and the sort of "why didn't I think of that" gadgets that solve a problem most people just live with. A reasonable pairing with a plant or a packet of seeds if you want a two-part gift.
A few practical notes from a fellow planner
I keep a small notebook in my desk drawer where I write down what each member of my family seems to actually use. It's a habit my mother taught me, and I will pass it along: the best Mother's Day gift is rarely the most expensive one. It is the one that suggests the giver was paying attention.
- Order by the first weekend of May at the latest. Catalog companies are not Amazon; their warehouses can lag by a week in early May.
- If you live far from your mother, a card mailed by hand the Wednesday before still arrives in time and means more than tracking-number panic on Saturday night.
- Many catalog companies run their best Mother's Day promotions about ten days before the holiday, then quietly extend them by 48 hours after. If you missed the window, check again on Monday.
Anna Jarvis would probably tell us to throw the whole catalog stack in the recycling and write a letter instead. She would not be entirely wrong. But she would also, I suspect, allow that a tin of pralines from Savannah and a thoughtful note tucked inside is closer to the spirit of the day than a bouquet at the supermarket checkout. The point, as she kept saying until no one would listen, is the attention. The catalogs are just a way of helping you pay it.
