I don't know about you, but personally, I find Father's Day to be the most difficult holidays to celebrate. Not because it's controversial or obscure or too commercialized. Far from it actually. It seems difficult in this day and age for us to figure out exactly what fatherhood is supposed to entail. Well, perhaps we can get some hints when we take a look back at the origins of this holiday.
Fathers were originally honored on St. Joseph 's feast day on March 19. However, Mrs. Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, inspired by Anna Jarvis' campaign to have mothers celebrated on an official Mother's Day, started celebrating an equivalent holiday to honor her father. Her father, William Jackson Smart was a veteran of the American Civil War, and had to raise their family single-handedly when his wife died giving birth to their sixth child. Sonora wanted to acknowledge the courage, selflessness, protectiveness, and love that her father had shown his family. Thus, the first official Father's Day celebration occurred in June 1910.
Now, the redefining of the father's role in today's shifting family dynamic is difficult enough. This, in itself, is tough enough to handle and adapt to. But there is a glaring problem that's even more challenging. Particularly, what in the world do you do for Father's Day?
Yes, I know there is a plethora of gifts in every shopping mall and gift shop, locally available or through the Internet. But that's just the problem, you see. All of these gifts are becoming commonplace and boring, frankly speaking. I mean, let me ask you this: What can you give your father as a gift on his special day that won't collect dust on a shelf or clutter up a dresser, and won't become an unrecognizable antique in the garage or spare room? You want to give him something that will actually be appreciated the day after it has been given, right? And more importantly, what can you give him that he hasn't already bought for himself?
Moms are so much easier. Just invite the whole family over for a 5 course meal, do all the cooking and all the cleaning and let her sit back and enjoy the company without having to do any of the hosting or cooking or cleaning work. If you want, you can easily make her day with a visit to a luxurious spa. You can easily find something or someplace to pamper her and make her feel like a queen.
Fathers can be relatively easy to find gifts for. If your dad is a techno-geek, an outdoorsman, a sports fanatic, or a home theater nut, there are countless gift ideas readily available at your nearest shopping mall. Just get him a car for his train set, a new computer gadget, a couple of tickets to the game, or the latest DVD. You can also plunk yourself down in front of your computer and find several gifts for him on the Internet. Even so, do any of these really show our fathers that we appreciate their sacrifices and heroism, their strengths and their weaknesses?
Fear not, for there are always alternatives to everything. Likewise, you can easily find other great gift ideas for your father, like plants and flowers. Not something that one usually associates with Father's Day, right? How many people give flowers and plants to their dads on Father's Day, or for any other special occasion, for that matter? But maybe for that reason, flowers would be an ideal gift for that Dad who has everything else.
Believe it or not, there are masculine plants and flowers that can symbolize the very things that we've decided are paternal qualities. You want an example? Take the sunflower for example--big and strong, its bright face like a shining symbol of hope in a dark place. Violets are great as well. Violets have long been associated with fidelity and trust as well as with sacrifice and devotion. Now those are gifts that a father would like.
