Here in Mexico, there is no figure in society who is more important than Mom. Without her, everything falls apart, and everyone knows it. Mother's day doesn't fall on a convenient Sunday here. It is May 10th every year. On Mother's Day, everything stops. If you haven't completed all of your shopping by 3 pm, you are out of luck. It's easier to find an open market on a Sunday.

The day usually starts off with a serenade for Mom, around 4 or 5 am. People hire Mariachis and bands to come to the house and play loudly in the street, to wake Mom with a lively song or five of devotion. It is a charming tradition that we only have to endure once a year.

Once Mom is up and dressed, the whole family escorts her to church for Mother's Day Mass at 7 am.

There is usually a program at the school for Mother's Day, but since Mother's Day fell on a Saturday this year, all the schools had their program on Friday. We were lucky enough to be invited to the one at Josefa Ortiz, our local school, to see our neighbor's daughter dance. There are pictures of the program [4] in the photo gallery [5].

Mom does too much around the house for her to get an entire day off, so she completes the minimum required tasks between 5 am and 3 pm. Even though the normal, daily jobs have to be completed, they are done with joviality. When you walk the neighborhood streets, you can hear lively music and laughter coming from most homes. Mom's chores of course include feeding everybody twice, and cleaning up afterward. After all, nobody cooks like Mom.

While Mom is washing up after breakfast and preparing lunch, the whole family scatters in search of gifts. The streets around the flower market were practically gridlocked with pedestrians, cars, and taxis as people chose gorgeous bouquets for Mom. I saw more than one face frowning in consternation while someone tried to figure out how to get a huge flower arrangement into the backseat of a taxi.

Cakes are another must have for Mother's Day. The bakeries go into overdrive trying to keep up with demand. Every third person walking downtown is carrying a cake. Some large, some small, but all for Mom. A food ballet can be seen, as everyone plies and pirouettes in an effort to move through the crowd and keep their cake safe.

Everyone converges back at home for lunch and, if Mom is lucky, a nap.

Mid-to-late afternoon, the extended family starts to show up. The music gets turned up louder, Mom dances, and laughter and cheers can be heard as families enjoy each other and celebrate Mom. Some neighborhoods have a big potluck, and everyone goes out into the street to mix and mingle and sample to food from other families. In our neighborhood, the family parties wound down and were cleaned up so everyone could take Mom out to dinner around 9 or 10 pm.

I don't know how they do it. It seems to me like Mother's Day would be more tiring than a typical day. On our street, all the Mom's weren't tucked safely into bed until after 2 am. And everyone was up bright and early this morning for Sunday Mass at 7am. Then they came home, made breakfast, and caught up on all the chores that weren't done yesterday. Mom's are truly a marvel, deserving to be revered.