Last night I went shopping for my mother a Mother’s Day present. In my family, what really matters is getting my mother a gift she wants. We don’t suffer from any of this “it’s the thought that counts” crap. This is often a problem because my mother changes her mind about everything and gift requests are no different. She told me weeks ago that flowers would be a nice treat. Then she wanted money to spend on something for her garden, and just last night she called me with instructions to go to the mall and get her some “mint green towels.” So this afternoon I followed her directive and purchased her some green towels. I hope she doesn’t change her mind again because I put the towels in the post today.
This experience caused me to think about the varied rituals Mother’s Day. Some families get together for a big meal. Others go out to eat; in fact, it is traditionally the Sunday of the year that the most people eat out on. One of my friends refused to participate in the holiday because he said that a card company invented it to sell more cards-perhaps he is right.
In the South we have the strange ritual of “Decoration Day.” For those of you who are unfamiliar with this phenomenon it is when cemeteries are cleaned up in the days leading up to Decoration Day and subsequently on the actual Decoration Day the graves are decorated with new floral arrangements and plants. When I was a child, some families I knew even got to get new clothes and shoes for Decoration Day like it was Easter. I was always a little jealous of them because I always wanted another pair of shoes. In my family we had to go to the cemetery on Saturday to put the decorations out then go back on Sunday before church to make sure everything “still looked nice.” Finally, we went back after church to visit with everyone else who had decorated their family graves. People visited back and forth around the cemetery--oooohing and aahhing over how “nice” things looked. Needless to say as a child I HATED this ritual. Looking back on the experience now I can’t separate Decoration Day from Mother’s Day in my mind. It was always just a part of our Mother’s Day celebration. My father’s family still all meet and carry on just as they have done for their entire lives; and my sister forces her daughters to endure the process just as we did as children. Yes, it is a strange way to celebrate Mother’s Day and yet many people across the Deep South will find themselves in a cemetery Sunday.
Do you and your family have any strange Mother’s Day rituals?
I know about Decoration Day but I never participated in it. My mother's side of the family are all buried in a neat clean cemetery with a "perpetual care" plan--though once my grandparents died, we did take flowers (real flowers) there on their birthdays and holidays. It was always poinsettias at Christmas.
ReplyDeleteMy daddy's family, however, is buried in a rural cemetery in Russellville and they did have have Decoration Day. We didn't go. My mother said she wasn't going to be buried there and she wasn't going to get out in that heat and kill herself just because they didn't have the sense to get a perpetual care plan. If my daddy had any opinion on the matter, I don't remember hearing about i. That was often the case.
At my house we have a strange ritual - it's called let mom (me) have a day to herself. That means: no makeup; I get to stay in my ratty flannel housecoat as long as I want; and I do not lift a finger all day except to do what I want. My son and my husband simply tiptoe around me, not bothering me (just as I like it). We usually grill out and eat on paper plates. I watch a movie (chick flick) and they disappear. A great day all in all.
ReplyDeleteAnd, as you said, Plotster, I usually run around trying to get my Mom the latest gift she ordered (which changes day to day). But, this year, ha, I never asked what she wanted - I got a gift card from Coldwater Creek. So there, take that and you can't change your mind. I put it in the mail and felt like I had finally done something right.
I agree that the card companies came up with this holiday but hey, if I get one day a year not to have to wear makeup or get dressed - I'll buy the card.
No rituals at our house. I just let the day play out as it will. This Sunday I will probably be working in my veggie and flower gardens. The kids and hubby will give me something I have been hinting about for awhile (I give them multiple choices :D) and we'll throw something on the grill. Kinda like most of our Sundays minus the gift.
ReplyDeleteHmm, the decoration ritual must be an AL thing. I'm from south GA and we didn't have decoration. Never heard of it until I moved to AL. Congregating in the cemetery for the afternoon doesn't sound like my idea of a fun day either. I would have been the one playing hooky with you! LOL
Cheryl-that day of laying around in a robe and watching movies without make up sounds like a good way to spend a Sunday.
ReplyDeleteSherry-I guess Decoration Day may be an Alabama thing but no matter where it is from I sure do hate it!
I feel totally dissed.
ReplyDeleteThe questions put a lot of pressure on a non-writer! I do not have any Mother's Day rituals out of the ordinary, however I have participated in my share of Decoration Days. We didn't get new clothes, though. But Decoration Day wasn't all that special because my family are grave-visitors from way back. We don't need any excuse to go see our dead.
ReplyDeleteAnna, good to hear from you. Yeah, I think I have even visited your dead at some point with you.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry about the questions and comment with whatever you have to add. We are hopeing for a pressure free blog.
"Decoration Day": That's the name Todd and I were hunting for this morning! I have never participated in such a thing, family graves being far away and paid to be taken care of.
ReplyDeleteNow, a former boss helps with his partner's DD every year in Monticello, FL, which is one of the bits of North Florida that still counts as the South. However, that family's DD ritual could not be perpetrated in church clothes, new or not. It was a day of heavy yardwork in the cemetery, and I do think it was sometime in May, though it might have been Memorial Day.
Doesn't it seem familiar, though not very just, that a holiday purporting to celebrate mother's hard work for her family turns into, er, more hard work for the person who coordinates everything? Smacks of "hainting". <---typed with a knowing glance at the Last Duchess (my grandmother's wedding portrait)
Sarah,
ReplyDeleteWas she really the LAST Duchess--or like in the Browning poem, just the most recent? After all, you're kind of duchessey.
Sarah,
ReplyDeleteWas she really the LAST Duchess--or like in the Browning poem, just the most recent? After all, you're kind of duchessey.
The story is - and you'll have to check out the painting when next you're at our house - that while "reconstructing" Germany post-WWII, my grandfather (called Pi, yes, like the interminable number) got a local artist to paint a wedding portrait of his beloved wife (my grandmother Myra). They did things like this partly because they liked to collect beautiful objects, and partly because they wanted to support the local economy (they said later, not because they were opportunists, though the context begs the question).
ReplyDeleteWell, the trouble was, that Myra really hated to be the acknowledged center of attention. On a spectrum of introvert-extrovert she was a -10 in the housebound direction. (Now at a family gathering, no-one else could tell an extended story, she'd wander off. But.) So she didn't care for this portrait, which is the classic "look at this beautiful woman in her fine dress" standing pose. So Pi, the lit major, called it after the Browning poem, as they argued over it. He loved it, wanted to be able to see it, so she'd hang it behind their bedroom door, where he could admire it (which was her, after all) but not in front of anybody. After his death, she papered over the glass with early marriage photos, and we took it that way to her hospice room.
She was a very elegant woman in general, so I suppose I come by the "duchessey" honestly. I have no idea how she got it - she shared a horse to attend a two-room school in Trenton, Kentucky, used her education to get off the farm, and took advantage of their extended stay in Germany to rid herself of her West KY accent.