Google Mother’s Day and the first few pages will come up with ideas for gifts you can buy or make. You might even be very glad for these suggestions as you do some last minute browsing. But, we’d like you to pause before you click 'Add to Cart', as it might be interesting to hear of the history of Mother’s Day first.

The first Mother’s Day was celebrated by Anna Jarvis in 1908 at a church in Virginia. She had begun a campaign to honour all mothers in 1905, when her mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, passed away.

Ann Reeves Jarvis had been a dedicated social activist. She had founded several Mother’s Day Work Clubs to better sanitary and health conditions as well as provide education. After the American Civil War, she started a Mother’s Friendship Day to mend relations between the Confederate and Union armies. Ann Reeves Jarvis also believed in honouring the role of a mother, because of “the matchless service she renders to humanity in every field of life.”

Naturally, Anna was proud of her remarkable mother. She began a campaign to celebrate Mother’s Day – writing to everyone from state governors to President Woodrow Wilson to novelist Mark Twain, canvassing support. She meant for Mother’s Day to be a celebration and thanksgiving for mothers all over the world. As an emblem for the day, she chose her mother’s favourite flower – the white carnation. And she urged sons and daughters everywhere to send handwritten notes to their mothers.

Anna Jarvis had set out to mark a day with simple and heartfelt gestures. But the idea snowballed into something that she came to hate. White carnations were not in season so florists would charge heavily for the flower. The handwritten letters spawned the greeting card industry. And over time, the industries jumped onto the opportunity this sentimental day provided. To her, the festival became a “burdensome, wasteful, expensive gift-day.”

And this was almost a century ago. Today, she would be mortified. So how does one celebrate Mothers’s day? Simple, emphasize gestures over gifts.

• Cook her a nice meal instead of getting her a gift card on some ecommerce website.
• Take her out for a drive. Talk.
• If you can’t be together, write to her. It’s ok to be maudlin on one day, if not more.
• Let her embarrass you.
• If you can’t write to her, call her. And then write to her anyway.
• By writing we don’t mean status updates on Facebook or appropriately hashtagged tweets.
• Take over her chores for the day. Help her out through the year. Mums much prefer that to gifts according to surveys.
• Make her a card. Doesn’t matter if you’re not into craft. Doodle.
   

 Any ideas on what you’re going to do this Mother’s Day? It’s on Sunday, the 8^th of May, this year. Share with us in the comments section.