Give Mom the Gift of Memories (in Video)

It’s Mother’s day again, and our thoughts turn toward all they have done for us – and what they deserve in return.

This is the time of year where boxed chocolates reign supreme, and gift certificates are sold in droves — and chances are that some of you waited until the very last moment. Now, you find yourself frantically running around trying to find a gift for dear old mom, and finding there’s nary a bouquet of roses to be found throughout the land.

Stop panicking! Mom doesn’t want all the things listed above! After all, aren’t they all rather stereotypical? Doesn’t mom deserve something uniquely special from you?

How about applying some tech-savvy to your Mother’s Day gift-giving this year by taking her to a private screening of a movie — all about her?

Say it in a Video

You can’t go to a wedding reception these days without seeing a personalized picture montage of the happy couple (usually set to Aerosmith’s “Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”), tricked out with cool effects and great transitions. But did you know you can do the same thing yourself, online? On the cheap?

Sites like Animoto (www.animoto.com) and Flixtime (www.flixtime.com) make it simple. Upload a few pictures or videos to the site, choose from their music (or upload your own), click the button and presto! A customized video to your mom. Add text where it fits, tweak how long the photos/video appear, and it makes it all look (and sound) professional.

Both sites give you the chance to do shorter videos for free to test it out, and the cost of outputting something longer is fairly reasonable. Post the result to YouTube, or download the file to your desktop, and surprise your mom this Mother’s Day.

Yes, Mother’s Day is a day to celebrate our mothers, and all that they have sacrificed to give us the lives we know and love. While chocolates are nice (serotonin buzz alert) and flowers smell lovely, they are here and gone within a few days. Giving the gift of memories, lovingly created by you via the sites listed above, will give her a gift she can treasure forever.