The
month of May brings to us the wonderful opportunity to celebrate the
unique occasion called Mother's Day. For each of us, this is the
time to pay a tribute to that special person whose soft hand
nurtures us to what we become in life. It is impossible to pay back
even a fraction of the affection and care that we get from our
mothers. Mother's Day is a symbol of the depth of the love of every
human being for his/her mother. It is a day set aside only for the
mother - one of the most beautiful persons in our lives.
Mother's Day is a relatively modern concept and quite different from
Mothering Sunday, the occasion that began to be celebrated from the
16th century. Mothering Sunday did not begin as a celebration of
motherhood, but was rather a time when people attended their local
churches for a service to be held on the fourth Sunday of Lent.
Though Mother's Day once had some connections with this day, it is
an occasion that is especially dedicated to all mothers of the world
and observed by all offspring to acknowledge the contribution of
their mothers in their lives. The festival is said to have begun
from ancient times and believed to have got its roots from the
spring celebrations of ancient Greece in honor of Rhea, the Mother
of the Gods. The holiday is also often supposed to have risen from
the ancient Roman holiday, "Matronalia", that was dedicated to Juno
- the Roman deity who is mentioned to be the wife and sister of Lord
Jupiter in Roman mythology. It was during this latter festival that
human mothers were also honored along with the Goddess and gifts
were given to them, a tradition that is now the highlight of the
modern Mother's Day celebrations.
In the United States, Mother's Day started about a century and half
earlier due to the efforts of the American social activist Julia
Ward Howe and Anna Marie Reeves Jarvis, an Appalachian homemaker.
The occasion as dreamt of by both these women, however, was vastly
different from how we celebrate it today. It was Jarvis' daughter,
Anna Jarvis, who finally succeeded in introducing Mother's Day in
the modern sense.
The earliest Mother's Day observances witnessed people celebrating
the day following such traditions as attending church, writing
letters to their mothers, and sending cards, presents and flowers.
As years passed by, the occasion gained more and more popularity and
saw the emergence of a greater number of customs. Today the holiday
is officially celebrated in the U.S. every year on the second Sunday
of May. With U.S. Presidential recognition, Mother's Day has become
a time to honor all mothers. For millions of mothers across the
world, it is a time of breakfast in bed, family gatherings, and
crayon scribbled "I Love You"s. In recent years, Mother's Day has
become a hugely popular occasion in the US. In many other nations of
the world, the tradition of Mother's Day observance has caught on
from North America and Europe. But the date of the observance varies
throughout the world. Not surprisingly, even the nature and extent
of the celebrations of this special day differ greatly in different
places. In some countries, it is almost an offence to your mother if
you do not observe the occasion. Then there are such other nations
where it is a little-known festival celebrated mainly by immigrants,
or covered by the media as a taste of foreign culture.
In the U.S., Mother's Day is celebrated with great fanfare and
continues to be one of the most commercially successful occasions.
According to the National Restaurant Association, the Second Sunday
of May has become the most popular day of the year to dine out at a
restaurant in the United States. On this day, telephone lines here
record the highest traffic, as sons and daughters staying within
their precincts or away try to make the most of this day to express
their appreciation of their mothers. According to IBIS World, a
publisher of business research, Americans approximately spend $2.6
billion on flowers, $1.53 billion on gift items or treats and
another $68 million on greeting cards for their mothers on this day.
If you enjoy Mother's Day at TheHolidaySpot, refer it to all your
friends and loved ones. Hope you enjoy your trip through the site.
Happy Mother's Day to all loving people and their mothers!
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