When is Mother's Day and when is Mexican Mother's Day? Here's what to know

Some people gift flowers or nice jewelry; others go out for a meal. Sometimes, a long-distance phone call is how you show a mother in your life your appreciation. There are more phone calls made on Mother's Day than almost any other day of the year.

If it's any indication of how important people find Mother's Day celebrations, U.S. consumers spent a record $35.7 billion in Mother's Day-related purchases in 2023, according to an annual survey by the National Retail Federation.

However you choose to celebrate, Mother's Day is a special day you want to be ready for. Here's what you need to know:

When is Mother's Day 2024?

Mother's Day is observed every second Sunday of May, falling on Sunday, May 12, 2024.

When is Mexican Mother's Day?

Mexican Mother's Day, or Día de las Madres, falls on May 10 every year.

What is Mexican Mother's Day?

The honorary celebration is often filled with family reunions, flowers, traditional dishes and singing.

The 101-year-old holiday was founded in 1922 by journalist Rafael Alducin when he called on Mexico to create a holiday that celebrated las reinas de la casa, or the queens of the home.

While Mexico was the first nation in Latin America to declare it an official holiday, nations all over Latin America adopted the holiday and gave it their own regional, community and generational traditions. In Mexico, eating traditional foods like mole, pozole, enchiladas, quesadillas and sopes are commonplace, as well as singing celebratory songs like "Las Mañanitas," or "The Morning Song," which doubles as a Mexican birthday song.

Who invented Mother's Day?

Celebrations similar to Mother's Day have been prevalent in societies for thousands of years across every continent. However, what we have come to know as Mother's Day in the U.S. can be credited to a woman named Anna Jarvis, an activist from the early 20th century.

Anna's mother, Ann Reeves Jarvis, gave her the inspiration she would use to eventually champion the national holiday. Her mother was also a prominent activist around the time of the Civil War and would organize "Mothers' Day Work Clubs" that taught women how to care for their children.

Following her mother's death in 1905, Jarvis wanted a day where people would be encouraged to honor the sacrifices mothers make for their children. She worked for the next three years to bring her dream to life, and on May 10, 1908, the first Mother's Day celebration took place at a Methodist church in Grafton, West Virginia.

The successful celebration motivated her to launch a letter-writing campaign to newspapers and politicians. She urged them to adopt a day honoring motherhood, arguing that American holidays were biased toward male-oriented achievements.

West Virginia, Jarvis's home state, was the first to adopt the holiday in 1910. By 1912, many states, towns and churches made Mother's Day a yearly tradition, and Jarvis had established the Mother's Day International Association to promote her cause.

The ever-passionate daughter's campaign for a nationwide celebration of motherhood finally ended when President Woodrow Wilson declared the first official Mother's Day in 1914.

In a twist of fate, Jarvis would spend the later years of her life fighting to remove the holiday from the national calendar. As Mother's Day became more marketable for businesses, she disagreed with the commercialization of the holiday and campaigned against anyone who profited from it. Jarvis launched lawsuits against florists, greeting card manufacturers and other industries before her death in 1948.

What was the original name for Mother's Day?

Versions of Mother's Day have emerged under various names throughout the years. One of the earliest instances was "Mother's Friendship Day" in 1868, organized by Ann Reeves Jarvis, the mother of the eventual founder of Mother's Day, Anna Jarvis. Mothers were encouraged to gather with former Union and Confederate soldiers to promote reconciliation.

Just a few years later, in 1870, Julia Ward Howe, a poet and reformer from the Civil War era, called for a "Mother's Day for Peace" to celebrate peace and advocate for the eradication of war.

Although 44 years later, through an almost decade-long process led by Anna Jarvis to create a national Motherhood Day, the country eventually came to know the day simply as Mother's Day.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: When is Mother's Day 2024? When is Mexican Mother's Day?