Wichitas Favorite Mom

About Wichita's Favorite Mom
About Teleflora's America's Favorite Mom
The History of Mother's Day

Wichita's Favorite Mom

2008 is the 100th Anniversary of Mother's Day! To celebrate this event, Tillies Flower Shop wants to honor the Mothers of Wichita. Our Wichita's Favorite Mom contest is designed to let everyone know just how special our moms are. Not only will local moms have the change win great prizes locally, they will be automatically entered in Teleflora's National America's Favorite Mom Contest, where they will have a chance to appear on national television.

Teleflora's Americas Favorite Mom

America's Favorite Mom is presented by Teleflora.

Today show appearance
15 chances to win!
If your Mom is among the 15 semi-finalists vying for the title of America's Favorite Mom, she will be featured on NBC's Today show during the five days leading up to Mother's Day, May 11.

This will give the TV audience the chance to meet a wide range of wonderful Moms, including the Working Mom, the Single Mom, the Military Mom, the Non-Mom and the COE (Chairman Of Everything) Mom. Each day, viewers will cast their votes online.

In order to be considered to be a semi-finalist, your favorite Mom's nomination must be submitted prior to Aril 25, 2008. However, we encourage you to nominate your Mom as early as possible.

Prime-time NBC TV appearance!
If enough Today show viewers vote for your Mom, she may be among the five finalists who will star on a prime-time Mother's Day TV spectacular, hosted by a major celebrity.

And the winner is...
If she wins this incredible nationwide contest, she'll be crowned America's Favorite Mom in front of an audience of millions of people and take home cash and prizes galore!

Dates and Deadlines

April 25, 2008 - Last chance to nominate your favorite Mom for consideration as a semi-finalist for the TV contests.
May 4, 2008 - Sweepstakes end
May 5-10, 2008 - America's Favorite Mom semi-finalists are featured on NBC's Today show
Mother's Day - May 11, 2008, 7 p.m., NBC Five finalists compete for the title of America's Favorite Mom on an NBC prime-time TV special.

History of Mothers Day

Today, it is common to celebrate Mothers Day on the second sunday of may by lavishing gifts and attention on our mothers and grandmothers. However, the practice of honoring mothers has its roots in antiquity and started as tributes and festivals celebrating ancient goddesses.

Mother's Day in Antiquity

Anatolian mother goddess festivals date back to earliest human history. The goddess Cybele, the earth mother was worshiped in the ancient world as far back as neolithic times. The Greeks carried on this tradition with a festival held around the vernal equinox, honoring Rhea, the mother of the gods. The Romans venerated the great mother in the celebration of Magna Mater which also fell around the spring equinox. Sometimes referred to as Hilairia, the celebration included games and a procession through the streets, and gifts to mothers. The Romans also included the ancient Egyptian annual celebration of Isis in their veneration of mother goddesses.

Mother's Day in Europe

Mothers Day in Europe began as a Christian holiday where early Christians honored the church in which they were baptized as their "Mother Church" on the fourth Sunday of Lent. In the 1600's a clerical degree in England created what became known as "Mothering Day" which included a celebration of real mothers by honoring them with cakes and flowers. This one-day reprieve from Lent was viewed as a compassionate holiday where servants and workers could travel home to see their families.

The American Celebration of Mother's Day

Julia Ward Howe, author of the Battle Hymn of Republic, in response to the death and carnage of the Civil War, called for an international Mother's Day celebrating peace in her Mother's Day Proclamation of 1870. Although she, and other women in post civil war America pushed for this holiday and celebrations continued in Boston until the 1880's, it never became a national holiday.

In 1908 Anna M. Jarvis wanted to create an official Mother's Day to honor her own mother, Anna Jarvis. She successfully petitioned her mother's church, Saint Andrews Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia for such a holiday. And so, on May 10th, 1908, the first official Mother's Day celebration took place. Anna Jarvis honored each patron of the church that day with her Mother's favorite flower, the carnation. This tradition is continued today, where women where carnation corsages to honor their own mothers. Women wear white corsages to honor mothers who have died, and red carnations to honor mothers still living.

Anna Jarvis devoted herself to the creation of a National Mother's Day holiday, and in 1914 Woodrow Wilson made it an official holiday to be held on the second sunday of may.

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