Mother’s Day is a joyous celebration of motherhood everywhere. Falling at the beginning of May, it also marks the turning of spring into summer when some spectacular flowers are in season, so Mother’s Day flowers make for a riot of color in the sunshine.
If you’re looking for some Mother’s Day ideas that will make your mom feel extra special we’ve got the perfect solution. We’ve also gathered together some of the most interesting Mother’s Day facts so that you can get inspired by the reasons and history behind this day of celebration.
Without further ado, here are six Mother’s Day facts you probably didn’t know.
The founder was Anna Jarvis
The founder of Mother’s Day, Anna Jarvis, was born in West Virginia in 1864. She took up the cause of celebrating the mothers of the nation in honor of her own mother, Ann Jarvis, who had fought for better sanitary conditions and measures to reduce child mortality. Ann had died on the second Sunday in May 1905, which is why that day became the one on which Mother’s Day is celebrated.
In later years, however, Anna Jarvis came to regret her involvement with Mother’s Day and the fact that it narrowed the role of mothers down to just a single day. She stated:
“A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to Mother—and then eat most of it yourself.”
Its roots are in Civil War reconciliation
Three years after the end of the Civil War, tensions were still high, and former enemies found it hard to get over the trauma of war and forgive each other. Ann Jarvis decided one of the best ways to heal these wounds was through the power of mothers and organized a “Mothers’ Friendship Day” in her native West Virginia.
Though initially ill-tempered about facing those they had once fought, the day became a huge success, bringing tears to the eyes of veterans as they shook hands and embraced their former enemies. It’s no surprise then that West Virginia became the first state to adopt Mother’s Day in 1910.
Woodrow Wilson made Mother’s Day a national holiday
Anna Jarvis relentlessly campaigned for a national Mother’s Day, writing hundreds of letters to political representatives and setting up the Mother’s Day International Association. Eventually, in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson made the second Sunday of May a national holiday.
Grammar matters
Among the more interesting Mother’s Day facts is the placing of the apostrophe, i.e., “Mother’s” instead of “Mothers’” which was very important to Anna Jarvis, meaning that each family would celebrate their individual mother, rather than a broader concept of mothers in general.
Mother’s Day Flowers
The first Mother’s Day flowers were white carnations. According to Anna Jarvis, these symbolized the “truth, purity and broad charity of motherly love” and with their fragrance being symbolic of her memory and prayers. She quite nicely put it that “the carnation does not drop its petals but hugs them to its heart as it dies, and so, too, mothers hug their children to their hearts, their mother love never dying.”
So, for many years white carnations were the go-to Mother’s Day flowers. In more recent times, however, the range has been broadened. Pink and red carnations have become especially popular, symbolic for their associations with femininity and love respectively. Roses are also very common as Mother’s Day flowers as, well, because who doesn’t like roses? Check out our other blog posts to learn about colors for Mother’s Day roses.
Other Celebrations of Mothers
Though in the United States, Canada, and many other countries, the second Sunday of May is recognized as the one true date for Mother’s Day, around the world there are a variety of different holidays and dates connected to Mother’s Day.
In the United Kingdom and Ireland, Mother’s Day or Mothering Sunday is celebrated on the fourth Sunday of Lent, which generally falls in March. In Hindu countries like India and Nepal, people have to get their Mother’s Day ideas ready for the new moon day of Baisakh (April or May), and the celebration is called Mata Tirtha Aunshi (Mother’s Pilgrimage fortnight.)
In Russia, Belarus and other ex-Communist countries, Mother’s Day is combined with the already widely celebrated Women’s Day on March 8th. In the Catholic Church, the day is heavily linked with the Virgin Mary, so countries such as Costa Rica and Panama hold Mother’s Day on her feast days.
So now you’ve got all the Mother’s Day facts down, you can seriously impress your own mother when you hand her a beautiful Bouq. Why not check out our fabulous range of handcrafted Mother’s Day bouquets? Farm fresh and created by our artisan florists, they’re the perfect floral gift to show how much your mother really means to you.
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