Dad, what do you want for Father’s Day?.....Nothing!
So, Sunday June 19th is day we can show our appreciation for the Dad's in our lives, no matter what form they come in. Maybe we don’t all do this enough on a regular basis? Well at least the day gives us an opportunity to make up for the lack of ‘Thank yous’, during the year!
What is Father’s Day about, anyway?
The idea of the day is to celebrate and honor fathers, fatherhood, as well as parenthood.
‘Nothing’
Do you ever ask your Dad what he’d like for Father’s Day? Do you get the standard response of “Nothing”?
Actually you can now literally buy your Dad, well….Nothing! For one day only you can buy, (care of the folks at Century 21), a piece of Nothing, in Arizona. Check out this article for more details!
Source Century 21
So, how did Father’s Day come about?
Well, some sources think it may have been inspired by Anna Jarvis’ work in the 1800’s. She lobbied really hard to have Mother’s Day recognised as a national holiday, and as we all know, she was successful!
On July 5th 1908, a West Virginia church held a Sunday sermon explicitly honouring fathers. This was actually in memory of 362 men who died during a mining disaster in Monongah and was a one time only commemoration, rather than it becoming established as an annual tradition.
Sonora Smart Dodd, (pictured above), is renowned as the founder of Father’s Day, as we now know it. She wanted to establish a male equivalent to Mother’s Day and spent her time drumming up support for the idea. Washington State celebrated the nation’s first statewide Father’s Day on July 19th 1910. After that the holiday slowly began to spread, even though it wasn’t very well received by many of the male population initially. A lot of men thought it was an attempt to domesticate manliness!
It wasn’t until 1972, when Richard Nixon signed a proclamation that Father’s day actually became a federal holiday.
Did you know?
There are over 70 million Fathers in the USA and each year we spend approximately $1 billion on gifts for them!
The End
So there you have it, a little history lesson on how Fathers Day came about! How will you be showing your appreciation? Check out our website for ideas, if you need a little inspiration!
Sources:
Wikipedia
History.com
Fathersdaycelebration.com
Huffingtonpost.com
encyclopediaofarkansas.net