Walk into Azalea Flowers on Argyle Street at Kingsway Avenue this weekend, and you’ll be greeted with a riot of colour. The shop on Friday was full of buckets of flowers, and the staff members were working in a well-choreographed ritual: creating Mother’s Day bouquets and floral arrangements, taking orders and preparing bouquets for delivery.
“This is the most intense of all,” Azalea owner Lyndon Cassell said as he rushed a bouquet from the store to the delivery van.
“Definitely the busiest (weekend).”
Several different surveys—from Stats Canada to IPG Media Brands—show that Canadians spent approximately $27 on mothers for Mother’s Day in 2015, double that in 2016 and are estimated to spend close to $75 in 2017.
Flowers remain the most popular item, with dinner out second and gift cards third.
An American woman named Anna Jarvis successfully campaigned for Mother’s Day to become a recognized holiday in 1908. She originally wanted to honour the community service work her mother did, and to recognize all the work mothers do for their families. The date—the second Sunday in May—is the day her mother died in 1905.
editor@albernivalleynews.com
