Muttertag, or Mother’s Day, is on the second Sunday of May in Germany.
Since this means that it will always be later in the year than the UK equivalent, for years I have been resigned to the fact that I cannot purchase a card in Germany for the UK date, and faced with the option of buying a card and keeping it for 10 months or sending one for the German date, I have always opted for the latter.
Unfortunately, such cards do not become readily available until a few weeks before the event, and unlike some other countries, Germany does not seem to go in for a wide variety of them.
However this year the search for a Muttertagskarte has been worse than usual. I have visited at least two supermarkets that, whilst stocking a good number of cards for birthdays, weddings and passing several tests, did not see the forthcoming Muttertag as a reason to extend their range.
Even one of our local newsagents only had two cards in the shop when I asked them. Two identical cards, that is. Kaufhof in Frankfurt had the largest range that I have seen this year, at least by comparison to the rest.
But for some reason not only the availability but also the choice of cards has gone downhill as well, with the designs moving away from flower-type pictures towards small-children-type.
That means that for this coming Sunday, I am faced with a limited choice of cards that I don’t really like, compounded by a lack of outlets within a 20km radius selling any at all!
And since Vatertagskarten are even harder than Muttertag ones, I suspect that finding one of those will be almost impossible.
I have a feeling, that I may have to improvise this year…
Have you tried Zazzle? You can get cards year ’round online and in most languages.
Yes, that is the sort of thing I meant with “improvise”, although it’s too late for this year to order from them in time. Thanks for the tip though!