Mother's Day
El dia de la mare és una celebració que a Espanya es fa el primer diumenge de maig per honorar totes les mares. Les primeres celebracions del Dia de la Mare es remunten a l'antiga Grècia, on se li rendien honors a Reva, la mare dels déus Zeus, Posidó i Hades. Igualment els romans van cridar a aquesta celebració La Hilaria quan la van adquirir dels grecs i se celebrava el 15 de març en el temple de Cibeles i durant tres dies es feien oferiments. Els primers cristians van transformar aquestes celebracions en honor a la Mare de Déu, la mare de Jesús. A Irlanda i Anglaterra se celebra el quart diumenge de la quaresma, conegut menjo Mothering Sunday i en Estats Units the Mother’s Day es celebra el segon diumenge de maig.
During the sixteenth century, people returned to their mother church for a service to be held on Laetare Sunday. In later times, Mothering Sunday became a day when domestic servants were given a day off to visit their mothers and other family members. It was often the only time that whole families could gather together, since in other days they were prevented by conflicting working hours. Today it is a day when children give presents, flowers, and home-made cards to their mothers.
Mothering Sunday is also sometimes know as Simnel Sunday because of the tradition of baking Simnel cakes. The Simnel cake is a fruit cake. A flat layer of marzipan (sugar almond paste) is placed on top of and decorated with 11 marzipan balls representing the 12 apostles minus Judas, who betrayed Christ. You can check the recipe here.
The modern Mother's Day comes from the United States where it was nationally recognized as a holiday in 1914 after a campaign by Anna Jarvis (May 1, 1864, Webster, West Virginia — November 24, 1948, West Chester, Pennsylvania).
On May 12, 1907, two years after her mother's death, she held a memorial to her mother and thereafter embarked upon a campaign to make "Mother's Day" a recognized holiday. By the 1920s, Anna Jarvis had become soured by the commercialization of the holiday. She and her sister Ellsinore spent their family inheritance campaigning against the holiday. Both died in poverty. According to her New York Times obituary, Jarvis became embittered because too many people sent their mothers a printed greeting card. As she said: “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. A pretty sentiment!”.
Fonts: Wikipedia and Woodland Junio School