Mother’s Day – “Youth fades; love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; a mother’s secret hope outlives them all,” a famous quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes sums up the eternal significance of a mother. In the literature of all countries, motherhood is often used metaphorically to suggest new life. From Kali to Madonna to Aphrodite, the mother figure has been eulogized in several forms in myths and in their various roles as the nurturer, protector and sustainer. In reality, this divine love shines in our hearts and sustains us throughout our lives. Mother’s Day is a humble effort to acknowledge a mother’s ever-flowing love and to compliment her unrelenting efforts to meet her child/children’s needs. Yet again, Mother’s Day 2014 will be a time to honor the warm and generous spirit of your mother who made innumerable sacrifices in your growing-up years.

The earliest concept of Mother’s Day celebrations originated in Greece, when during the spring festivities, Rhea, the Mother of the Gods was honored. Much later, in the 13th Century, “Mothering Sunday” to honor Mother Mary, was observed during Lent held in March/ April. Much later, in the 17th century Britain, the English dedicated one Sunday, called ‘Mothering Sunday’ which entitled servants to a day’s holiday for visiting their mothers. Back in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson established the 2nd Sunday of May as a national holiday owing to the efforts of Anna Jarvis. Ever since, Mother’s Day is celebrated across the globe to sing paeans to motherhood in all possible ways.

Mother’s Day Festival

Though the idea of appreciating one’s moms need not take the shape of a full-blown festival every day, a day honoring a mother’s sacrifice is a deserving tribute to all mothers and mother-like persons. Mother’s Day is a festival that carries a tone of sublimity and reverence, rather than arousing emotions of plain revelry. Unspooling a flurry of emotions, Mother’s Day is the precious day that lauds and holds mothers or someone like a mother in the highest esteem, to reciprocate a mother’s affection, sacrifice and unending support. Mother’s Day Festival offers one a great opportunity to celebrate and create some of the most touching and special moments in your relationship with your mom.

Mother’s Day Celebrations
As affectionate and instinctive as a mother-daughter/son relationship is, a mother still craves for a warm hug from her children. Mother’s Day celebrations are worth planning for, as it is a day when you can cherish the precious events of your childhood and adolescence when your mom took care of you and watched over you quietly and silently. Thus, you can look forward to Mother’s Day as a day for moms to relax, a day when she is rid of the daily rigmarole of domestic life and thoroughly pampered.

The most unique part of Mother’s Day celebrations is that it can be celebrated in extraordinarily simple ways. Offering a customized card, flower baskets, a cute gift hamper or something for keepsakes’ on this day takes on a special meaning for all moms. So, a visit to some exotic place, a spa experience or a party with her friends and contemporaries look just like the perfect idea to indulge her.

In Ethiopia, something along the lines of Mother’s Day festival is ‘Antrosht’, and the celebration runs into several days of musical recitations, songs and family feasts.

Mother’s Day is also seen as a day fit to stand for causes related to women and children by organizing various types of events.