Happy Mother’s Days

I periodically remind my kids that Mother’s Day is every day, but the power of sentimentally-touching Hallmark greeting cards, as well as the mega-million dollar Macy’s ads (among others), which convincingly insist that this national holiday should be celebrated in this country precisely on the second Sunday of the month of May, beats my logic.

Mother’s Day is celebrated all over the world with big enthusiasm and lavish spending. With the phone lines recording heavy traffic and with cards, flowers, festive meals, and gift sales reaching their peaks, it is considered the next biggest holiday after Christmas and Valentine’s Day. Mother’s Day has been commercialized to a great extent as Americans spend over 18 billion dollars on this holiday, according to The Fiscal Times. But wouldn’t it be wonderful for this holiday to fall on Fridays, so mothers and their kids don’t have to go to work and can be celebrated for at least three days?

This year’s Mother’s Day, I am celebrating for two days, in two different countries. How lucky can I get? While on recent vacation in England, where Mother’s Day is celebrated with great excitement and verve on the fourth Sunday in the month of Lent, I was visiting the stunning and sunny city of Bath. Being at the right place at the right time and date created an opportunity for my husband to pamper me with the Mother’s Day Champagne Afternoon Tea at the glitzy Grand Pump Room, located in the city’s historic building built in 1789 next to the entrance to the famous Roman Baths. With the selection of smoked salmon and cucumber blini with shallot crème fraiche, homemade scones with clotted cream and fruit preserves, a selection of Pump Room pastries, a pot of aromatic English tea, and a sample of the waters from the spring which fills the Roman Baths, this was my perfect Mother’s Day celebration. And, at such a perfect place, worthy of being featured in Jane Austen’s books, who at one point in her life lived in Bath, and whose novels, including Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, described the Grand Pump Room where the upper class enjoyed their tea.

My second Mother’s Day festivity will take place with my kids and grandkids this weekend at Filoli, the historic site in Woodside, California—a perfectly glamorous place to celebrate me and each fair lady. The picturesque Filoli estate, drowning in flowers, was designed by Willis Polk in 1915 for William Bowers Bourn, and has served as the magical background setting for more than 20 films and television shows, including The Joy Luck Club, The Game, The Wedding Planner, and Heaven Can Wait. It served as the palatial home to the oil-wealthy fictional Carrington family’s juicy saga on “Dynasty,” the iconic nighttime blockbuster series with Linda Evans, John Forsythe, and Joan Collins, the lead stars on this eight-year mega hit on ABC. Filoli’s stunning mansion’s famous front courtyard, the grand staircase, and portico were in the opening sequence for each episode of “Dynasty.”

On this year’s Mother’s Day weekend, just like me, you too can be on the imaginary set of the rich and famous and partake in the festivities that coincide with Filoli’s 26th Anniversary celebration of the Filoli Flower Show which has become a premiere floral event in the Bay Area (from May 9 through May 11). The Flower Show’s theme this year, ‘‘Broadway in Bloom,’’ is presenting a lavish collection of floral interpretations, elegant table settings, and garden vignettes created by more than 70 designers who are inspired by this theme. ‘‘Every year a different theme is chosen for the Filoli’s Flower Show,’’ says Christina Syrett, Filoli’s media and public relations manager. ‘‘The exhibitors really enjoy having a theme that inspires them. The historic Greenhouses will also be open to the visitors from Friday to Sunday, where plants have been in the Filoli collection since 1920.’’

Happy Mother’s Day!

For additional information on the Filoli Flower Show tickets or for reservations for the Mother’s Day Special Tea and the Mother’s Day Champagne Brunch visit www.filoli.org.

Filoli is recognized as one of the finest remaining country estates of the early 20th century. Located 30 miles south of San Francisco, the 654-acre property includes a 36,000 square-foot residence furnished with an extensive collection of 17th and 18th century English antiques and 16 acres of English Renaissance gardens that showcase an exquisite horticultural collection. Established as a private residence in 1917 and opened to the public in 1976 to promote cultural and horticultural endeavors, Filoli is a historic site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Lina Broydo immigrated from Russia, then the Soviet Union, to Israel where she was educated and got married. After working at the University in Birmingham, England she and her husband immigrated to the United States. She lives in Los Altos Hills, CA and writes about travel, art, style, entertainment, and sports. She hardly cooks or bakes, not the best of ‘‘balabostas’’ her beloved beautiful Mom, Dina, was hoping for. Therefore, she makes reservations and enjoys dining out.