Mother's Day Trivia

Fantastic Friday! *waves*

I subbed my novel, Bloodlines, this week and received a request for the full manuscript! Now, I’m anxiously awaiting a response. You know the routine…can the remaining chapters hold the interest of the editor the way the first three chapters did? Will the editor like it, love it or hate it? Then on top of that I have my husband who is trying to tell me he knows more about this business than I do and how I should have handled the situation differently. *bangs head against the wall*

But my topic for today is Mother’s Day. All of us women either are a mother or have a mother, so let’s celebrate it a couple of days early with some facts. All received from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother):

Anna Jarvis founded the modern day Mother’s Day holiday and in the United States it is always celebrated on the second Sunday of May. Ms. Jarvis created Mother’s Day at the starting of the 20th century. However, in the 16th century the Christians and early pagans celebrated Mothering Sunday. Most countries derived their Mother’s Day holiday from the United State’s original celebration, with the exception of Mothering Sunday in the UK.

Mother’s Day became so commercialized after nine years that Anna Jarvis became a major adversary to the holiday. She saw the purchase of greeting cards as being too lazy to pen something more personal or heartfelt. In the end, Anna Jarvis wished she had never started Mother’s Day. Ms. Jarvis felt so strongly about Mother’s Day that she spent the remainder of her life and all of her inheritance fighting against the commercial abuse of the celebration.

Here are some staggering facts according to Wikipedia: “[A]ccording to IBISWorld, a publisher of business research, Americans will spend approximately $2.6 billion on flowers, $1.53 billion on pampering gifts—like spa treatments—and another $68 million on greeting cards. Mother's Day will generate about 7.8% of the U.S. jewelry industry's annual revenue in 2008, with custom gifts like mother’s rings.”

Wow!

I was asked this year by my husband and two sons, “What do you want for Mother’s Day.” My response was “nothing”. Seriously, there isn’t anything I want and I do not need to be honored for something I feel blessed to be 365 days a year. Besides, the best gifts have always come from the heart, which means they are homemade. All those store bought gifts…*shrugs*…I can’t tell you where they are. All those flowers...I hope they're dust by now. But those homemade ones, I have them all in special spots throughout the house. I’ll cherish those until the day I die. Some of my favorites, the book marks with their fingerprints on them, little ceramic dogs and cats painted with enthusiasm for me, cards with their misspelled words of love, but most of all, I’ll remember the smiles of pride when they hand me those gifts and their big hugs when I exclaim over them.

So, what do you think? Do you want paper or plastic? LOL No, I’m just kidding. But if you’re a mother, what do you prefer as a Mother’s Day gift? What have been some of your favorite gifts? If you’re not a mother, what kind of gifts do you give to your mother on Mother’s Day?

To all the mothers out there, I hope each of you have a very Happy Mother’s Day!