Sunday, May 12, 2013

Mother's Day or Mothers' Day?

Is it Mother's Day or Mothers' Day?
Read further to see the official flower for the day.

Today is the day mothers are celebrated in the United States
with their own special day.
But is that day Mother's Day or Mothers' Day, 
or merely Mothers Day with no apostrophe at all?


It seems Anna Jarvis, the founder of the day,
was very specific about the punctuation.
According to Wikipedia.org, Jarvis was adamant
that the word "mother" must be in the singular number
with an apostrophe 's' and not a plural with an apostrophe 's'.


                                                       

And her reasoning was that Mother's Day 
should be a day to celebrate not just motherhood in general,
but one's mother in particular.

And she also chose a flower to commemorate the day:
red carnations for living mothers, 
white carnations to decorate the graves of those whose mothers were deceased.


I don't think that practice lasted very long, 
but since carnations are the traditional flower of Mother's Day,
and also one of my favorites, here are a few to get us started:

What could be more pleasing than a gathering of red carnations?
morguefile.com

Unless maybe some bright pink ones:
morguefile.com

And how about the dyed ones? 
Florists can provide colors to suit anyone's preference.
These blue carnations look like they'd be soft enough to take a nap on:
morguefile.com

Peach, anyone?
morguefile.com

How about a delicate soft yellow?

All nice and any of them would do for a Mother's Day gift.
But who could resist this little charmer?

image from 1-800flowers.com

Happy Mother's Day!
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