Dads are teachers, healers, cooks, cleaners, coaches and chauffeurs to their kids, and to celebrate all they are and do all day, every day is Father's Day once a year.
Following is a compilation of trivia about dads and their day to help perfect that Father’s Day gift, card or a website.
- The origin of Father’s Day begins in Spokane, Washington, where Sonora Smart got the idea of having a special day to honour her father, William, while listening to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909. The following year, on June 19, the first Spokane Father’s Day was celebrated. A few years later, in 1916, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson approved the idea of observing Father’s Day every year.
- Other American presidents got involved in making Father’s Day the holiday it is today. President Calvin Coolidge made Father’s Day an event across America in 1924, and in 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed a proclamation declaring the third Sunday of June as Father’s Day. Both presidents, by the way, were fathers. They each had two children.
Sending Father's Day Cards
- Father’s Day is the fifth most popular holiday on which people send greeting cards, according to greeting card giant Hallmark. The holiday generates an estimated $100 million US in the sale of cards for not only dads, but also sons, uncles, husbands, grandfathers and sons-in-law. The most popular holiday on which to send cards? Christmas, which accounts for 60 per cent of sales, according to greeting-card industry officials.
- Who exactly sends Father’s Day cards? Sons and daughters send half of the Father’s Day cards to their dads, while wives purchase almost 20 per cent of the cards for their husbands. The remaining 30 per cent of cards go to sons, uncles, brothers, sons-in-law, grandfathers or “someone special.”
Father's Day Gift Ideas
- Father’s Day gifts, in terms of popularity, include hammers, wrenches and screwdrivers, but at the top of the list are neckties. Other presents for dad have a sporty theme: Golf clubs and fishing rods.
- In Argentina, Father’s Day is also celebrated on the third Sunday in June, but there have been attempts to change the date to Aug. 24. That date honours the day José de San Martín, who helped South American countries gain independence from Spain, became a father. (He had a daughter, named María).
- In Costa Rica, attempts were made to celebrate Father’s Day on March 19, which is the feast day of St. Joseph. The country’s capital, San José, bears the saint’s name. The new date of March 19 would then entail a dual celebration: In honour of St. Joseph, and in honour of fathers. However, the official Father’s Day date in Costa Rica is still third Sunday in June.
The day to honour fathers followed the implementation of Mother’s Day, courtesy of Sonora Smart, who got the idea to pay tribute to her dad on a special day. U.S. presidents followed suit in establishing the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. Since then, cards and gifts, with neckties being most popular, have been bestowed on fathers every year in several countries.
The copyright of the article Father's Day Trivia in Holiday Entertaining is owned by Tina Costanza. Permission to republish Father's Day Trivia in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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