OH was in the newsagents with little bear. I said I hadn't really wanted to be bothered with Mother's Day as little bear was not only full of chickenpox but probably a little too young to really get to grips with it. I am becoming less and less interested in times where you have to behave in a certain way just because it is a certain date - Christmas and Easter excepted. All this mother's day, valentine's day, secretaries day thing seems to be set up just to sell cards. Mother's day in the UK was originally nothing to do with a biological mother. It was to do with church law.
(for those interested - in the middle ages churches had legal dues and were entitled to charge not only tithes but had the second best beast of a serf when they died, fees for burial, fees for baptism etc - marriage only became a church matter a lot later - and it could make a tidy profit. So if a church had previously covered a large area that included many village, and someone built a church in one of those villages, then the original, or mother, church would lose out financially. It was usually agreed that churches that would encroach on existing rights would be subordinate to the 'mother' church, give them a cut of the money and once a year, during Lent, would process back to the mother church to confirm that the original church still had the right to take the money. This was the origin of Mothering Sunday.)
I seem to be in a bit of a minority, however. OH came back and told me that someone had been buying cards headed up, 'to mummy from your bump'. That's right, a mother's day card to a lady who had not yet had the baby.
I think my jaw hit the floor.
Now I am fine if someone wants to buy into the card frenzy and get cards. That's up to them. However what worries me is that everyone else is sucked in, because it becomes compulsory to buy cards for half year anniversaries, or purple day or whatever else the card industry think up, and you have to buy and send them or you look unfeeling and uncaring. And what is this about Easter cards? Why? Just because there are Christmas cards surely they are not trying to tell us that Easter cards are also mandatory. I'll buy Easter cards when people start selling Pentecost cards.
Also, I am a hypocrite. I sometimes send cards from evil cat. But not for Easter!
1 comment:
Have to say that my mother always sent Easter cards to some people but she regarded Easter as a very big deal, and thought it should be as important as Christmas. In Church, Easter is very significant, after all. But Easter cards are less religious and more fluffy bunnies these days, so I haven't bought any for years.
I keep a box of cards in the house and like to send one now and again to people if I want to send special wishes for some reason or another - it is lovely to get a handwritten note in these electronic times, but I totally agree with your comments about the carditis which the shops are peddling - it all gets too much!
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