Right, hopefully the title stopped mums from reading, apart from the nosey ones… Yes, YOU! Stop reading now!!! For most of the rest of us, this is the warning that it’s time to celebrate the first and most special woman in our lives, as this weekend sees Mother’s Day in Spain.
So, you now have a matter of days to get to the shop and buy a special gift, or just go online if you prefer, but let’s be honest, the personal touch on this occasion is worth it.
Unlike what happens with Father’s Day, a significant day in Spain, always celebrated on March 19 (Saint Joseph), Mother’s Day changes its date every year. Furthermore, each country has its own date to honour these women.
In Spain, Mother’s Day is always celebrated on the first Sunday in May, so in 2024 it takes place on Sunday the 5th.
Although in Spain the day takes less attention than Father’s Day, wrongly we feel, this festival is well established in the popular imagination, and the truth is that its celebration in May, like Father’s Day, is relatively recent.
Catholicism in Europe began to honour the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus of Nazareth according to those who believe, on December 8, 1854, when Pope Pius IX declared the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Every December 8, the feast of the Immaculate Conception served to commemorate all mothers. The custom continued until the 1960s, when Galerías Preciados adopted the custom of celebrating Mother’s Day in May, in the image and likeness of what other countries do. Its competitor, El Corte Inglés, maintained the date of December 8, so for some time Mother’s Day was celebrated in Spain, on a commercial basis, twice a year.
It was, as it happens, the same commercial pair responsible for the commercialisation of Father’s Day, in the 1950s.
It was in 1953 that the then managing director of Galerías Preciados, José Fernández Rodríguez, propagated Father’s Day in the press and on the radio, shortly after to be joined by businessman Ramón Areces, who was the managing director of El Corte Inglés.
It wasn’t until 1965 that Mother’s Day in Spain was definitively established on the first Sunday of May, a month associated with the Virgin Mary, thus also joining the ecclesiastical authorities.
The truth is that few countries besides Spain celebrate Mother’s Day on the first Sunday in May; Portugal, South Africa, Hungary, Lithuania, Angola, Andorra and little else. Worldwide, mothers are honoured on different calendar pages, but let’s be honest, they should be honoured every day anyway, and so although we should recognise this Sunday with gifts for mum, we should never forget the most important woman in our lives.
