Ah, so that's how Mother's Day came about!

Mommies beware: Sunday, May 8, is our day! The day you get to sleep in. The day your minis make you breakfast (that you may even get to eat in bed). And the day of big hugs and thousands of kisses. Yep, it's Mother's Day!

Every second Sunday of May, all moms in the Netherlands are spoiled with treats and their kids' most beautiful homemade crafts. And this day is also celebrated extensively in other countries, such as El día de la Madre in Spain and Mother's Day in England. Not all of them on the second Sunday in May, by the way: in almost every month, Mother's Day is celebrated somewhere in the world. But how did this day actually originate?

A beautiful story with a sad ending
Rumors abound that Mother's Day was only invented by retailers, as a commercial day to earn big bucks. Maybe that's how it has become today, but centuries ago mothers were already worshipped. For example, the ancient Greeks worshipped the Mother of the Gods (Rhea) and, of course, the Catholic Church has been doing this for centuries with Mary, the mother of Jesus.

The story about Mother's Day that we really like and where "our" Mother's Day most likely comes from today is that of American Anna Marie Jarvis. She organized the first Mother's Day in 1908 to commemorate her own mother who always worked for the welfare of other mothers. Anna Marie chose the second Sunday in May because it was the Sunday after the anniversary of her mother's death. She promoted the day a lot to church leaders and politicians and so in 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared to celebrate Mother's Day with the whole country from that year on. Around 1925, the tradition came to the Netherlands.

A sad twist to this beautiful story is that Anna Maria Jarvis died unmarried and childless in the poorhouse in 1948. Surely we would have wished her a slightly more loving end....

Mother's Day gift inspiration
Can you guess which product sells the most in the days leading up to Mother's Day? We'll give away in advance: it's not chocolate and it's not jewelry. What is? Flowers! In the days of Anna Marie Jarvis, carnations were at the top, but nowadays the rose is the most sold flower around Mother's Day. We also made a list of Mother's Day gifts that every mom to be wants to get.

Of course we prefer to get a homemade craft with glue still dripping from our children. But we also love a day to ourselves, sleeping in, eating out, having high tea, walking on the beach or a combination of these.