Here's How You Can Host A Mother's Day Party On Zoom For A Remote Celebration

If you’re unable to be with your mom on Mother's Day IRL, you may want to try throwing her a virtual party. With a video chatting platform like Zoom, you can celebrate together no matter where in the world you are. Here's how to throw a Mother's Day party on Zoom for a remote celebration.

Mother's Day is Sunday, May 10, and if you're having a remote celebration, you'll want to get prepared. Setting up a party on Zoom requires that you and your mom both have a Zoom account. Make sure that you both have Zoom installed on your computer or phone your computer or phone and have registered prior to Mother's Day to avoid any hiccups there.

Keep in mind that if you're planning to video chat with more than one person for Mother's Day, you'll need to know that Zoom's free option only gives you 40 minutes of free group chatting with three or more people. So, unless you have one of the paid plans (which start at $14.99 per month) you may need someone else to start another meeting after yours expires. If you're only calling mom, the free plan gives you unlimited one-on-one calls.

Schedule your Zoom meeting

Moms are planners, and you should be, too, when it comes to Mother's Day celebrations. Pick a time for the Zoom meeting based around your mom's preferences, but also make sure everyone you want to join the Mother's Day party can call in, too. If you're inviting your siblings to join the call, you may want to schedule the Zoom meeting ahead of time to make it easier.

Pick out a Mother's Day-themed background

To use virtual backgrounds on a PC or Mac computer, check that you have Zoom version 4.6.0 or higher. If you're using an iPhone, make sure you've got the latest update in the Zoom mobile app with an iPhone 8 or later. Play around with the feature and plan out which party background you may want to use ahead of time. You check out some Mother's Day backgrounds here.

There are also some Mother's Day-themed Zoom backgrounds from brands like Dunkin' for free online. You can download those from the brand's blog here. Designs include cute sayings like "Best Mom Award goes to you," and "I love you more than donuts."

Once you've downloaded a background, open Zoom, go to your Settings, and click on the Virtual Background tab. Then, you'll select the plus button (+) to upload your desired backdrop.

Plan the rest of the details

The rest of your planning is up to you. For your Mother's Day party, you can get as creative as you'd like. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• Host a Mother's Day brunch over Zoom. All you need to do is make sure mom has the goods, and enjoy a virtual cheers to the lady of the hour.
• Try sharing Airbnb's online experiences with mom, like meditation or a collage tutorial.
• Put together a Mother's Day game night.
• If you want a simple way to get everyone in on the fun, try a Mother's Day scavenger hunt.
• Make Mother's Day PowerPoint presentation. You can either make it all about mom, or you can pick a subject you think your mom would like.
• Virtually enjoy cake and and watch your mom presents while everyone goes around and shares their favorite memory with mom from the past year.

Once you've got mom on the Zoom call, it's up to you how you went spend the day with her. No matter what you wind up doing, it's nice to carve out some time to "be together" when you can't actually be together.