This weekend America will celebrate Mother's Day. I want to take a couple of moments to say to both my mother and grandmother as well as my step-mother and mother-in-law (Wow! I have a lot of mothers!!) a VERY Happy Mother's Day. To my mom, the present is in the mail. I hope it gets to you before July!! :-)
We know that Germans have mothers, too. So do they celebrate Mother's Day? Is it different from our celebration? Well, the answers are yes and no. They also celebrate Mother's Day here in Germany, and they will celebrate it on Sunday just like we will in the US. The individual events won't be that much different: kids making cards for their moms at school, sons and daughters taking flowers to their mom, going out to lunch on Sunday, or perhaps just getting together for coffee and cake.
One difference is that unlike in America, the commercialization of the event is nowhere to be found. There are no television commercials about how much you should be doing, no flowers unlimited ads, and no visuals in the stores about things you could buy for your mom. It is nice. I know the holiday will happen, but in true German fashion, it will be subdued and personal.
I have a couple of fellow teachers at the language school who are from other countries, and we often compare when holidays happen that are traditional in our country. One is from England where they celebrated Mother's Day this year on March 22nd. The other is from Mauritius which celebrates the holiday on May 31st. The earliest celebrations took place in Norway on February 8th, and the latest will be on December 22nd in Indonesia. In some ways as a mom, it warms my heart just a little to know that mothers are being honored somewhere almost every part of the year. :-)
Of course, I don't want to leave out those dads. Here in Germany, Father's Day is celebrated on May 1st. I have to admit, I had no idea. Ironically, we missed it due to lack of advertising. We will be celebrating the traditional date for the US which is June 21st this year.
To all you mothers out there, I wish you a wonderful celebration with your families. For those of you who are not yet mothers, take time to honor the mothers of your life this weekend. Kids - a little tip - moms love the cards you make a WHOLE lot more than a store-bought one. Take some time this weekend, if you haven't already in school, and make something for her. It will warm her heart!
The words for the day are mother and father: die Mutter (moo tehr where the "oo" is like in book) and der Vater (fah tehr).
The question of the day is "What does a shoe maker have to do with auto racing?"
Auf Wiedersehen,
Frau Spitzer
