After Easter, Shoppers Are Already Gifting Toward Mother's Day

Easter chocolate has barely been unwrapped, and shoppers are already writing notes that sound a lot like Mother's Day. Three days after Easter, 15% of all seasonal gift messages this week mentioned Mother's Day, even though the nearest celebration, in Spain and Portugal, is still four weeks away. For most markets, it's even further out. Something is shifting early this spring.

Meanwhile, new baby gifts have been climbing for nearly a month. Four weeks ago, they accounted for roughly 5% of all gifting. This week, they've reached 10%. That's not a coincidence. The same families buying gifts for new parents are the ones who'll be shopping for Mother's Day in a few weeks.

15% of seasonal gift messages this week already pointed toward Mother's Day, weeks before the first celebration.

Easter Is Fading, But It Shaped the Week

Easter still accounted for 69% of seasonal gifting this week, but that number is trailing off quickly. Last week, seasonal gifting made up 13% of all messages. This week it dropped to 8%. The holiday's momentum carried into the first few days of April, then tapered. In Malta, where Easter traditions run deep, nearly a quarter of all gifting was still seasonal. A friend there sent a loving gift to celebrate a religious milestone, the kind of note that lingers after the holiday itself has passed.

In Australia, seasonal gifting held at 13% of all messages, while the UK dropped to just 6%. The geographic unevenness matters: Easter doesn't end on the same day everywhere. For stores with international customers, the long tail of a holiday can stretch a full week beyond the calendar date.

But the bigger story is what's replacing it. As Easter fades, birthday gifting climbed back to 35% of all messages, up from 33% over the prior month. Just-because gifts held steady at 27%. The everyday rhythm of gifting is reasserting itself, and layered on top of it are the earliest whispers of the next big occasion.

New Baby Gifts Tell the Mother's Day Story Early

The new baby gifting trajectory is one of the clearest signals in the data right now. Over the past four weeks, it climbed from roughly 5% to 8% to 10%, then held at 10% this week. That's not a spike tied to a single event. It's sustained growth driven by families showing up for new parents, week after week.

Family members wrote 43% of all gift notes this week, and the connection between family gifting and new baby occasions is hard to miss. In the US, 12% of all gifting was for new babies, the highest share of any country. An aunt and uncle sent blessings for a baptism. A mother celebrated her daughter's birthday with a note acknowledging her work bringing babies into the world. These notes sit at the intersection of new parenthood and family pride, exactly where Mother's Day lives.

The sentiment data reinforces the pattern. Notes full of love led all gifting at 39%, edging past kind, caring messages at 35%. That shift from warm to loving mirrors what typically happens as shoppers move from everyday gifting into more emotionally charged occasions. Love-filled notes tend to climb in the weeks before Mother's Day, and this week's 2-point gain over baseline suggests the climb has already started.

What This Means for Merchants

The window between Easter and Mother's Day is shorter than it feels. Spain and Portugal celebrate on May 3, just four weeks from now. The US, UK, and Australia follow on May 10. Shoppers are already writing notes that reflect Mother's Day sentiment, even if they haven't labeled them that way yet. Stores that stock new baby products, jewelry, and personalized gifts are likely to see the earliest wave; bracelets and necklaces already account for over a fifth of all products gifted this week.

For merchants with international customers, the staggered holiday calendar creates multiple peaks rather than a single spike. A store that sells to both Spain and the UK has two separate Mother's Day windows over eight days. Understanding when and why shoppers are gifting, through the messages they write with their orders, turns a seasonal rush into something a merchant can actually plan for.