PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY, Calif. - Monterey Road Child Development Center preschoolers invited their moms to an early Mother's Day celebration May 6 at the center.

To make the event stand out, the children and mothers happily enjoyed festivities and food outside. Additionally, the children made wind-chime gifts.

According to www.dayformothers.com, the history of Mother's Day is centuries old and goes back to the times of ancient Greeks, who held festivities to honor Rhea, the mother of the gods.

Then, it says, early Christians celebrated the Mother's Festival on the fourth Sunday of Lent to honor Mary, the mother of Christ.

Later, a religious order stretched the holiday to include all mothers, and named it as the Mothering Sunday, the site says.

While the English colonists who settled in America discontinued the tradition of Mothering Sunday because of lack of time, the site explains that in 1872 Julia Ward Howe organized a day for mothers dedicated to peace.

Next, in 1907, Anna M. Jarvis (1864-1948), a Philadelphia schoolteacher, began a movement to set up a national Mother's Day in honor of her mother, Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis. She solicited the help of hundreds of legislators and prominent businessmen to create a special day to honor mothers.

The first Mother's Day observance was a church service honoring Jarvis' mother. Jarvis handed out her mother's favorite flowers, white carnations, on the occasion as, it is said, they represent sweetness, purity and patience.

Jarvis' hard work finally paid off in the year 1914, the site explains, when President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the second Sunday in May as a national holiday in honor of mothers.