Posted by: Will – Priority Juggler on February 27th, 2008

It’s this Sunday! If you’ve forgotten, best dash off to our Mother’s Day flowers category and buy your beloved Mother some flowers and gifts while you still have time. We promise this post will still be here when you get back and you can then discover at your leisure the arcane way in which the UK chooses to decide the date of Mother’s Day every year.

Mother’s Day means that we’re all working very hard at Flowers HQ right now. Lots of people are concentrating very hard to ensure things go seamlessly, triple and quadruple checking distribution and purchasing plans. This year, we decided not to restrict our Mother’s Day range. Traditionally, all you can buy at Mother’s Day is pink flowers and, a quick look at our competitors shows that, elsewhere, that’s not changed at all this year. However, we figured our customers can decide for themselves what colour their mother likes and and we left our full range available for purchase. Interestingly, pink flowers are not the top sellers (though they are doing well). Our top seller this Mother’s Day is perennial Arena favourite, the bright and cheery bouquet, a very colourful bouquet featuring an explosion of colours, in the form of gerberas, roses, lilies and nutans. The only problem with having the whole range available is that it makes our operations and floristry super complicated this year, hence Steve’s brain having to be packed in ice to make sure it doesn’t overheat. But we think it’s worth the effort for the increased range. Thanks, Steve!

With UK Mother’s Day coming only two weeks after Valentine’s Day this year, most florists are going to have had the most stressful February in living memory. Why is that different from any other year, I hear you ask? Because of the arcane way in which the date of Mother’s Day in the UK is determined. It’s all about the moon - of course.

Here’s why:

1. In the UK, Mother’s Day is the fourth Sunday in Lent.
2. Lent is forty days (not including Sundays) before Easter.
3. Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after March 21
4. So once you’ve consulted your moon chart, grappled with your calendar, shaken it all up and juiced it, you come out with UK’s Mother’s Day as the 2nd March this year. That’s this Sunday, folks.

Now don’t get me started on international Mother’s Day. Oh go on then - it’s the second Sunday in May each year, so most of the rest of the world will be celebrating Mother’s Day on the 11th May this year. Much simpler, but not nearly as cool as consulting a moon chart I reckon.

Next week - the Gregorian calendar. Is it all it’s cracked up to be and who’s this guy Gregor?!

PS This time of year, whilst focused on mothers, is also family oriented. If you’re interested in novel ways of keeping in touch with your mother or other family members, we recommend you have a look at Kindo, a very cool website for building your family tree and sharing images and other media. Enjoy.

Filed under: General, Mega Days, Mother's Day on February 27th, 2008

---

Did you like this post? Why not subscribe?

via email

via your newsreader Flowers…uncut RSS Feed