Mother’s Day is May 11th this year and is an opportunity to celebrate the women in our lives. The women who brought us into this world, helped heal skinned knees when we were little, held us close when the world felt like it was crashing down and nourished us not just with food but also care and wisdom. Sometimes we call them ‘mom’ and sometimes we call them aunt or friend or sister or just by their given name. So we take the second Sunday every May to honor, celebrate and say thank you to the ‘moms’ in our lives who helped us become who we are, not matter what their names are to us.
Below is a bit about how Mother’s Day began in our country as well as a few interesting facts about its celebrations today.
1- One of the earliest celebrations to honor mothers was from the ancient Greeks who worshipped Rhea. She was known as the goddess of nature and fertility, and she was celebrated as the ‘Mother of Gods’ at their annual spring festival.
2- Mother’s Day in the US began as an effort on the part of Ann Jarvis to heal the divide which had been created in communities from the Civil War. She did this by bringing mothers from both sides together and in 1868 with the help of others, the ‘Mother’s Friendship Day’ was established.
3 - It was Ann Jarvis’s daughter, Anna Reeves Jarvis, in honor of her mother, who established the first Mother’s Day, in 1908.
4 - In 1914 Woodrow Wilson signed into law that Mother’s Day would be celebrated each year on the second Sunday in May as a national holiday.
5 - Anna Reeves Jarvis used carnations to honor her mother, red while she was living and white after she had passed and this tradition is continued today by many.
6 - Anna Reeves Jarvis was deeply distressed as she watched the day morph into more of a an opportunity for businesses to capitalize on sales than a day to celebrate mothers. She organized lawsuits, boycotts and walkouts to try to stop the commercialization of the holiday, but to no avail.
7 - More calls are made on Mother’s Day than any other day of the year, approximately 122 million
8 - Mother’s Day trails behind only Valentine’s Day and Christmas/Hannukkah for inspiring floral and plant purchases.
9 - Despite Mother’s Day accounting for approximately 25% of flowers purchased throughout the year, a simple greeting card is the number one gift, with over 150 million sent each year.
10 - Restaurants are notoriously busy on Mother’s Day and it is considered one the busiest, if not the busiest days of the year for most restaurants.
11 - Though not always on the second Sunday of May, Mother’s are recognized throughout the globe with different celebrations throughout the year.
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/arts-and-culture/g19561312/mothers-day-facts/
https://greekreporter.com/2024/05/12/mothers-day-ancient-greece/
