Tomorrow is Mother's Day!
Mother's Day is a sacred holiday that is celebrated each year on August 15, however, this year there is confusion as the "legal" holiday is moved to the following Monday, August 21.

The former administration last year year proposed a law that would move all "weekday" holidays except September 15 - Independence Day - to the following Monday, allowing for a long weekend.

However, most Costa Ricans are not happy with the move and feel the tradition of Mother's Day should be kept as it has always been and have pressed the government of Oscar Arias to overturn his predecessor's decision, a move that President Arias has said he agrees with.

But, it is too late for this year.

In effect, this year there will be two Mother's Day celebrated, the traditional one of gift giving and taking mother out for dinner and then the legal day off come Monday.

Some employers are giving their employees the day off on Tuesday as well as the following Monday. Other employers, have given their employees the choice.

As well, most employers are paying their employees today instead of tomorrow.

In any event, you cannot forget your mother, mother-in-law, the mother of your child, or girlfriend who is the mother of a child,  "mamacitas", or women in general on this special day.

Retailers are open additional hours today to fill the last minute buyer frenzy that is traditional.

Traditional gifts include housewares, appliances and cars, in addition to flowers and chocolates.



Historians claim that this day emerged from the custom of mother worship in ancient Greece. Mother worship which kept a festival to Cybele, a great mother of gods, and Rhea, the wife of Cronus, was held on March 15 to March 18 around Asia Minor. They insist that this custom spread around the world.

Mother's Day in the United States was first proclaimed in 1870 in Boston by Julia Ward Howe's Mother's Day Proclamation, and Howe called for it to be observed each year nationally in 1872.  The first known observance of Mother's Day in the U.S. occurred in Albion, Michigan on May 13, 1877, the second Sunday of the month.

In 1907 Mother's Day was first celebrated in a small private way by Anna Jarvis in Grafton, West Virginia, to commemorate the anniversary of her mother's death two years earlier on May 9, 1905. Jarvis's mother, also named Anna Jarvis, had been active in Mother's Day campaigns for peace and worker's safety and health. The younger Jarvis launched a quest to get wider recognition of Mother's Day.

A tradition calls for the wearing of carnations on Mother's Day - a red one if one's mother is alive, and white if she has died.

It is not clear when Mother's Day made it's first appearance in Costa Rica and how the tradition got started here. However, the holiday represents the second largest shopping event of the year for retailers, second to Christmas.

La Fuerza Publica, is on providing greater security on the principal streets of San José, offering shoppers security for a safe Mother's Day.