Mother’s Day is a time of commemoration and celebration for Mom. It is a time of breakfast in bed, family gatherings, and crayon scribbled “I Love You’s.”
Mother’s Day will be celebrated on Sunday May 11, 2008 (in the U.S.). In the UK Mothering Sunday is celebrated on the 02nd of March, 2008. The earliest Mother’s Day celebrations can be traced back to the spring celebrations of ancient Greece in honor of Rhea, the Mother of the Gods. During the 1600’s, England celebrated a day called “Mothering Sunday”. Celebrated on the 4th Sunday of Lent “Mothering Sunday” honored the mothers of England. During this time many of the England’s poor worked as servants for the wealthy. As most jobs were located far from their homes, the servants would live at the houses of their employers. On Mothering Sunday the servants would have the day off and were encouraged to return home and spend the day with their mothers. A special cake, called the mothering cake, was often brought along to provide a festive touch.
M – O – T – H – E – R
“M” is for the million things she gave me,
“O” means only that she’s growing old,
“T” is for the tears she shed to save me,
“H” is for her heart of purest gold’
“E” is for her eyes, with love-light shining,
“R” means right, and right she’ll always be,
Put them all together, they spell
“MOTHER”
A word that means the world to me.
Howard Johnson (1915)