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All over Ottawa, the Outaouais and Eastern Ontario, businesses, museums and other sites are offering special Mother’s Day events. A word to the wise: If you want to take Mom to one of these, sign up quickly, as many of them sell out each year.
Cover photo by Hauke Kaerkes on Unsplash.
Saturday, May 10
- Cup of Intention in Stittsville is holding an upcycled candle workshop. Participants will pour wax into a variety of vintage containers, such as antique teacups, to create a unique candle.
- In the South Keys area, Pretty Eats by Hanan is offering a Mother’s Day Charcuterie Styling Workshop. Guests will receive a mocktail or glass of wine to sip as they create, then they can take their festive charcuterie boards home.
- The African Caribbean and Black Wellness Resource Centre is holding a Mother’s Day High Tea in Overbrook with live music, African and Caribbean treats, and music. Proceeds will go to a community food cupboard. I LOVE that the dress code is “pastel colours, hats and fascinators.”
- Enana Events is hosting a Mother’s Day “all girls event” at the Rideauview Community Centre in Ottawa. On the menu: a buffet dinner, music, a photo booth and more.
- Mountain View Farm in Luskville, Quebec, is throwing a Mad Hatter’s Mother’s Day Tea. As well as enjoying loose-leaf tea and light sweet and savoury treats, you can cuddle the farm’s goats, and hang out with horses, rabbits, ducks and chickens.
- At the Sam Ault Arena in Winchester, moms (and dads!) are invited to create with their tots at a Family Paint Day for kids aged six and up.
- In Kemptville, Mom can browse for goodies at the Eastern Ontario Craft and Gift Mother’s Day Market.
- Grace St. Andrew’s United Church in Arnprior is hosting a Mother’s Day Garden Party Tea. Advanced ticket purchase required.
- Rosetta Hills Farm, just outside Perth, is offering private farm visits. One family at a time can hang out with alpacas, play mini-putt, stroll across the 103-acre farm, sip tea and enjoy treats from Perth’s North Folk Café. Book by May 4.
Sunday, May 11
- The Mother’s Day brunch at the Ironstone Grill at the Brookstreet Hotel in Kanata is sold out, BUT spots are still available at the hotel’s two other Mother’s Day brunches.
- Also sold out is the Mother’s Day brunch at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier Hotel, BUT you can pick up afternoon tea to go (buy in advance; supplies are limited).
- The Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau is offering a Mother’s Day brunch in its Panorama Café.
- At Studio G in Findlay Creek, the Mother’s Day brunch will include saxophone music, a dance performance and photo ops.
- Exit Lounge on Baxter Road in Ottawa is hosting a Mother’s Day Brunch and Paint. Put brush to canvas, then reward yourself with chicken-and-waffles or pistachio French toast.
- Artistic Cake Design on Clyde Avenue in Ottawa is offering a Mother’s Day Floral Cupcake Workshop. Participants will decorate seven vanilla cupcakes and bring them home (well, if they last all the way home in the car … OK, maybe that’s just me).
- During Mother’s Day for the Queen Bee, Mom can learn about queen bees and honey making, and stroll through an apple orchard. All moms will receive a $60 honey-themed gift.
- Beechwood Cemetery is presenting an adaptive concert for people with dementia or Alzheimer’s. The afternoon piano and flute performance by Getrude Létourneau and Catherine Donkin will feature familiar and soothing melodies, carefully selected to engage the memory and emotions of those affected by these conditions.
- The Eastern Ontario Craft and Gift Mother’s Day Market moves to the Bell Sensplex in Stittsville on Sunday.
- Strathmere Country Retreat in North Gower has two seatings, at 10am and 12:30pm, for its Mother’s Day brunch.
- In Morewood, Mom and the family can pose for family portraits amid the fruit trees at Cannamore Orchard.
- In Arnprior, Stone Fence Theatre is giving a “dessert theatre” afternoon performance of Miss Pringle’s Mini-Skirt, its hit production about a young city teacher who comes to teach in a rural one-room schoolhouse in 1965.
- At the Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario in Smiths Falls, you can get tickets for the museum’s main Mother’s Day celebration, which will include family train rides, croquet, picnics and a craft station. (Note that a Mother’s Day afternoon tea in the restored dining car is already sold out.)
- Also in Smiths Falls, Ambre McLean and D’eve Archer are giving an afternoon concert of songs and stories celebrating motherhood at the Smiths Falls Community Theatre.
- Vodkow is hosting a Spring Mother’s Day Market in Almonte, complete with vendors, food, games, cocktails and live music.
- Also in Almonte, you can enjoy Chocolate Fondue with Mom at Hummingbird Chocolate. As well as dipping sweet and savoury goodies in melted chocolate, you can buy mocktails and mimosas.
- You can pick up a tea box packed with goodies (tea biscuits, cookies, chocolate-dipped strawberries and more) at the Spencerville Mill. It could be fun to enjoy them at one of the picnic tables on the mill grounds.
- At the Tett Centre for Creativity and Learning in Kingston, there’s a Mother’s Day Pop-Up Market. Also at the Tett, there’s a Mother’s Day Tea in support of Kingston Interval House.
Looking for more tips on things to see and do in and around Ottawa? Subscribe to my free weekly newsletter or order a copy of my book, Ottawa Road Trips: Your 100-km Getaway Guide.
As the owner of Ottawa Road Trips, I acknowledge that I live on, work in and travel through the unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg Nation. I am grateful to have the opportunity to be present on this land. Ottawa Road Trips supports Water First, a non-profit organization that helps address water challenges in Indigenous communities in Canada through education, training and meaningful collaboration.
