Mother’s Day, It Is Here!

Where did Mother’s Day actually originate from, and where has it progressed from its start? What does the civil war have to do with a day involving mothers? What president finally declared Mother’s Day an actual holiday? Is this a holiday that is religiously involved? Though many think the Greeks had a sort of mothers day or the church’s Mother’s Sunday, the history of Mother’s Day has been very intriguing to say the least.

Where some say the Greeks had a festival in the fashion of Mother’s Day, history tells us this was more to worship a deity than to celebrate our mothers. However the UK’s Mother’s Sunday would be the equivalent of the US’s Mother’s Day, where the Mother’s Sunday is more of a religious past time being celebrated on the fourth Sunday of lent and also paying homage to the mother Mary.

The United States has had a very long journey of getting to the point of just celebrating our moms. Most people would never guess that a lovely lady by the name of Anna Jarvis was arguably one of the first people to call for a day to celebrate Mothers after her mother, Ann Jarvis’s passing in 1905. The initial start of women trying to start a day to celebrate mothers can be mapped back to 1870 to the 1900’s, trying to celebrate mothers for different causes not just because they are moms and amazing. From Ann Jarvis fighting to reunite families and create cleaner camps during the civil war to New York’s, Julia Ward Howe fighting for a “Mother’s Day of Peace” as an anti-war observation in 1872. So to those “Hallmark Holiday” hawkers, Mother’s Day got its roots from strong women fighting for some peace. It wasn’t until 1904 that the idea was even thought of to celebrate moms for all the great things they do for their families and to this day it is still a toss up between Frank E. Hering, Julia Ward Howe and Anna Jarvis to give the full credit of starting what we know of now as the modern Mother’s Day.

Even though West Virginia and many other states started celebrating Mothers Day in 1910, it wasn’t until May 9, 1914 that President Woodrow Wilson issued the proclamation that Mother’s Day was now an official national holiday to be celebrated on the second Sunday of May each year. Interesting enough though that originally American flags were to be flown on this day to honor mothers that had lost sons to war, but now flags are to be flown on this day in honor of all mothers. Do you have your American flag flying? What do you do out of the ordinary to honor your mother on this day?

The reason for the church saying they are responsible for Mother’s Day would have us taken back to Anna Jarvis in 1905 when she declared her mother’s funeral to be the start of Mother’s Day when she handed out 500 carnations, as they were her mother’s favorite and the day was to honor and remember her mother. That is why the carnation corsage is a traditional staple of the day, red for if your mother was alive and white if your mother has passed away, which has been credited to florists as starting the color representation. Anna Jarvis fought tooth and nail against the commercialization of the holiday she says she created in honoring her deceased mother and till the day she died she spent her fortune and every last second against the floral industry, jewelers, and greeting card companies. Anna found people to be to impersonal to their mothers with pre-printed greeting cards and gifts, and was quoted many times saying ‘she regretting ever celebrating the day’ many times before she passed away in 1948.

Of the three industries Anna fought against the most, the 2013 US Annual Sales in the jewelry industry were $2.90 billion, the floral industry was $2.66 billion and the greeting cards came in at $710 million, and this doesn’t include the numbers for taking mom out to a nice restaurant or the zoo or any other of the many things people do for their moms for Mother’s Day. The craziness is that the multiple statistics websites have Mother’s Day being a slight growth for florists and special trips (dinner, special attraction) and a slight decrease in jewelry sales. Are you getting your piece of the billions of dollars spent on this holiday? You can always check out your state floral association, floral magazines and groups such the Society of American Florists for any tips and tricks for a successful Mother’s Day.

Floral.today is all too familiar with the crazy people that walk into the door Mother’s Day week or gives you those ridiculous calls, so we’ve tried to find you some ways to snack a little better between arrangements, breathe between crazy phone calls, and hold yourself together till you are in your bubble bath with your champagne on Monday. Even though most people are going “I don’t have time after Mother’s Day to relax” you always have to remember that you are only given one body and if you don’t let it sit after putting it through the grinder you are just doing more damage in the long run.

Our Top 5 Easy Healthy Snacks

(Since we all know there is not going to time for breakfast, lunch or dinner)

1.) Dried Nuts With Fruit –

You are getting a boost of protein and depending on the nut and dried fruit, you are getting many other beneficial nutrients and vitamins throughout the day. You can find this in every grocery store known to man or make it yourself very easily so you can make it completely to your own taste and preference. We here at floral.today love dried cranberries, dried bananas with whole almonds with the skin, cashews, and pistachios all combined into a ziplock bag or travel cup.

2.) FRUIT! –

It may sound silly, but having bananas, apples, pears or any other type of fruit you can hold in one hand and walk around with easily is always going to be better than that double chocolate fudge turtle brownie. Being florists, you’re able to put most any fruit down that has skin or a peel and come back to it. Pears and apples are our favorites because you can set them down easily, take a bite every so often or cut it up before getting to work in the morning.

3.) Granola Bar –

These babies are packed with all kinds of yummy goodness that’s good for your body and can keep your energy level up. With the vast variety available, you can really pick and choose what your personal flavor is. When we are working on site or we know it’s going to be a crazy day, we always have Kashi® Chewy Granola Trail Mix Bar or the Kashi® Chewy Granola Peanut, Peanut Butter Bar. One has honey, oats, and fruit while the other has nut, oats and peanut butter. Like we said before, there are many different brands and types so you can get what you want.

4.) Cheese Sticks –

Again this comes in a package so you can set it down and come back to it very easily. These come in many different types of cheese and brands. We here at floral.today are still love the stringed cheese so we lean towards that more often, but paired with some fruit your getting all the nutrients from the fruit plus the calcium and other nutrients from the cheese.

5.) Snack Pack Sized Food –

This could be raisons, pretzels, apple sauce, or smaller bags of chips. The smaller sized portions help from over eating which can drag your energy down more than helping boost you through the rest of the day. I would avoid any chocolate drizzled or covered snacks so you aren’t just getting a huge serving of sugar.

There are many other options and many shops actually take time to eat lunch. Our suggestions aren’t for you to lose weight but help keep your energy levels up and keep you alert so you can keep going without hitting that late night wall too hard. We care about staying healthy and we hope you care about yourself as much. We will be having the occasional slice of pizza while we are designing over the next couple days but what will get us through the day is what we are putting in our mouth the majority of it.

Make sure that you take a second to breathe, we know it’s busy but for the customers that are asking for the world on a platter, or call just to hear themselves complain, make sure that you stop and gather yourself so you aren’t taking it out on your co-works, your customers or worse, yourself. You will not be able to please everybody and it is just crazy to think you can. I’m not saying take a 15 minute break or anything, but stop for a second, take 3-5 deep breaths, refocus yourself and be the very best you can be for the next person.

We will catch you up on our fun that we have at A Special Touch Florist next week, while we soak our feet. Floral.today wishes everybody great successes this Mother’s Day and prom season, make sure to keep us posted on all of your great designs, opportunities or other exciting news.

Till Next Week,