Mothers' Day
- by Cheranne Hack
- •
- 01 Mar, 2018

She has shown you some amazing things in your time. Mothering Sunday is coming up soon - it's Sunday 11 March. If your mum is still around, make a fuss of her!
If things go as nature intends, you will outlive her and then you will look back and wonder if you ever did enough to show her your gratitude and appreciation for everything she's done for you and your family.
I thought that the tradition of Mothering Sunday started in England when girls who worked away from home would get time off to go home to visit their mothers, and usually took a bunch of flowers. I looked online for further history and found this..
'Mother’s Day is a day to celebrate mothers and all mother figures such as grandmothers, stepmothers and mothers-in-law and everything that they do. A special effort is made on this day when children or daughters and sons-in-law buy cards, flowers or gifts for their mothers.
The origins of Mother’s Day date back to the ancient Greek times, but the way in which we celebrate it today began in America in 1908. The ancient Greeks dedicated an annual spring festival to maternal goddesses, and ancient Romans also celebrated a spring festival called Hilaria which was for a mother goddess called Cybele.
More recent origins of Mothering Sunday date back to the 1600s in England when it was held on the fourth Sunday of Lent. Some stories say that people would return to their mother church, the church that they were baptized in or attended services in when they were children. and this would bring together communities who hadn’t seen each other for a while. Other stories say that this date was to honour mothers. A prayer service was also held in church for the Virgin Mary and children would bring gifts and flowers to pay tribute to their mothers.
This day had almost died out completely by the 19th century.
After this, in America the idea of an official celebration for all mothers came in 1872 from Julia Ward Howe, an activist, writer and poet. She suggested that June 2 should be annually celebrated as Mother’s Day and should be a day dedicated to peace. Julia also delivered a passionate appeal to women in 1870 in Boston and urged them to rise against war, and she initiated a Mothers’ Peace Day service on the second Sunday in June and annually held the meeting for a couple of years. The writer worked hard to have Mother’s Day declared as an official holiday, but it was later replaced by the holiday now celebrated in May in America.
Anna Jarvis is recognised as the woman who invented Mother’s Day in America after she held a memorial for her mother in West Virginia in 1908. Her mother had previously expressed how much she wanted to have a mother’s day and Anna wanted to fulfil this for her. Anna held the ceremony for her mother and sent carnations to the church service for this as they were her mother’s favourite flower. After this, she and her supporters sent letters to those high up in positions of power and asked for an official holiday to honour mothers.
Eventually in 1911, Mother’s Day was celebrated in almost every state and on 8 May 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a joint resolution document that confirmed every second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day. Today in the UK, Mothering Sunday and Mother’s Day have merged and it is celebrated on the second Sunday of Lent which usually falls in either March or early April.'
So there you go. That's everything I know about Mothering Sunday. Do you call it Mothering Sunday or Mother's Day - and if you call it Mother's Day where do you think the apostrophe should go - is it for mothers in general, or one mother's day?! I think it would be Mothers' Day.

Anyway the reason I started writing this was to give you some gift ideas.
1) Flowers - The traditional option - don't all mothers just love 'em? Order from The Flower Shed - Tewkesbury or perhaps a subscription to Thebigbloomroom's
Flower Club.
2) Chocolates - especially ones like OMmazing Chocolates
which taste heavenly and are made in her favourite flavours.
3) An Experience - book a workshop together - how about making a bangle each at one of WMMsilver's workshops?
4) A Treatment - a massage, healing or meditation
could be pretty special!
5) A Photo Shoot - memories recorded for ever - Blink of an Eye Photography By Natalie
6) Beauty Products - how about something gentle and lovingly made for her skin type by Pink&Green?
7) Accessories - beautiful tweeds or velvets trimmed with faux fur by
Jessica Anstey Couture Designs, perhaps?
You can find all these and more right here.
And before I go.. I want to remind you to bear in mind those who have lost their mums and have that empty mum space inside that nothing else can ever fill. Those who wanted (or still want) to be mums but didn't have that option, so they give their motherly love out in other ways and my goodness the world needs that so much, where would we be without them? And the hardest of all.. those who have been mothers and their child has gone before them - that's not the way that things are meant to go and the grief is never over. All these kinds of mothers deserve love, kindness and a treat so much! So please make a fuss of them, and remember to be mindful of their feelings when you do posts about all the wonderful mums on 11 March. Mums who are around now, mums who've gone before, stepmums, aunts, godmums, world mums, and mums of the future.
xxx
