All I ever wanted to be was a mum, so ya darn tootin I LOVE MOTHER's DAY!
I really don't understand when people say that this and a lot of other holidays are commercial. Yes, they can be but you have more control over how you choose to celebrate and what that holiday means to you. Are you saying you are so weak that you would allow department stores, card stores and the media to tell you HOW to celebrate a holiday? If you agree with the basic primes of that said holiday then you celebrate it the way in which will make you happy but to say you don't like a holiday simply because of how others choose to celebrate them seems silly to me.
You don't like the idea that this or any holiday comes with the option to buy a gift - then don't buy a gift at all. It's really that simple. Last year I told my kids that I didn't want them to "buy" me anything. There was really nothing I needed or even wanted at that time however, I knew they would want to celebrate Mother's Day on some level so I came up with the idea of them making dinner for me. Now, for me requesting this was the ultimate gift. I knew these normally, squabbling sisters were going to have to work together, come up with a menu on what to serve who was in charge of doing what and everything else. In other words - work as a team and pretend even if it was only just for a few hours that someone else mattered more than they did; ie ME! I remember them leaving to shop for ingredients and them coming home to make the actual dinner. I could hear the little one giving her older sister cooking suggestions when she herself was just 8 at the time and had only assisted me in the kitchen but was far more interested in being in the kitchen than her 15 yr old sister. I remember peaking in on them and snapping a few pics of them in the kitchen and it looking like a bomb had exploded and running off back to my room pretending to be there the entire time. Finally, when they invited me onto the patio where dinner was served and the two of them covered from head to toe in everything in the kitchen I did my best not to laugh. I was served a garden salad with warm bread for the first course, fresh salmon, with a lemon cream sauce, wild rice, roasted veggies for the second course and for dessert and ice cream sandwich. I was told that was all they had left in the budget. But they served it on a plate. They even attempted to clean the kitchen - I say attempted because for a week after I was still finding traces of the dinner here and there. I was by far the best Mother's Day so far.
This year I decided to put them out of their misery and make an early dinner reservation to a place I've been wanting to try for some time now. They have pooled together their allowance and I'm sure I'll get a card and maybe something small to show their appreciation for everything I do but really the gift is in spending time with my girls on the same day the millions of other mums get to stick their chest out and get their just dues as well. Now, could that happen any calendar day of the year? Of course and it should and it does (even in my house) but it's just a day that set aside to say "a special thanks". My mum fell asleep in death in 2011 so I like many on this board miss my mum but I realize that so do my sisters, and so do my nieces and nephews and my kids. When we all can get together or even when it's just me and my girls we enjoy rehashing memories of her. Instead of them making us sad it gives us joy and makes us stronger as mums and as a family as a whole.
Who can turn a blind eye to all of that???
