Father's Day in Colchester

We often find that Men are difficult to buy gifts for. So to offer a solution to the dilema of what to buy your Dad this Father's Day, here are a few gift ideas.


A Book
If your Dad likes reading a book can make a perfect gift. Try to find out what sort of thing he likes or his favourite author. A magazine subscription is also another idea.

Music
If your Dad likes to listen to music, you may like to consider a CD or MP3 player.

Home and Garden
If your Dad likes a bit of DIY or Gardening, perhaps there's a power tool or garden gadget that'll make those jobs easier.

Sports
If your Dad's hobbies include sports like Golf, Tennis, Squash, Rugby or Football, whether he plays or just spectates, perhaps he'd like something relating to his favourite sport. Maybe consider tickets to a match, club membership or a Season Ticket, equipment or clothing.

Personalised Gifts

Most photo developing companies offer a service personalising gifts such as Mugs, Mouse Mats, T-Shirts and Key Rings etc.

Priceless Gifts
There are some gifts that money can't buy and they're usually the ones that are the most precious. If you have young children and you want to create a really special gift for Daddy, here are some ideas to try:

Give your child a disposable camera and ask them to take pictures of things that remind them of Daddy. Then ask them to write down or tell you what it is about each photo that reminds them of Daddy and create a really personal album with the results.

Buy a cheap plan fabric apron. Then using fabric paints, get your children to decorate it with hand prints, foot prints, their names etc. Then Daddy will have his very own apron to wear when cooking on the bar-b-q this summer!

Father’s Day is believed to have originated in Spokane, Washington USA. The original idea can be credited to Mrs. John B. Dodd, who first suggested the idea of the holiday in 1909.

Mrs. Dodd's father, civil war veteran William Smart, was widowed when his wife died in childbirth with their sixth child. Despite the obvious hardships, Mr. Smart proceeded to raise the newborn along with his five other children, by himself.

It wasn't until Sonora Dodd became an adult and was listening to a Mother’s Day Sermon that she realized the strength and selflessness her father had shown in raising his children as a single parent. The original date chosen for the holiday was June 5, Mr. Smart's birthday, however the celebration was postponed until June 19, the third Sunday in June, because there was not enough time to prepare.

At about the same time in various towns and cities across America other people were beginning to celebrate a Father's Day. Some accounts credit Mrs. Charles Clayton of West Virginia, as the founder of Father's Day, although most histories give credit to Mrs. Dodd.

In early times, wearing flowers was a traditional way of celebrating Father's Day. Mrs. Dodd favoured the red rose to honour a father still living, while a white flower honoured a deceased dad. J.H. Berringer, who also held Father's Day celebrations in Washington State as early as 1912, chose a white lilac as the Father's Day Flower.

In 1924 President Calvin Coolidge supported the idea of a national Father's Day, but it never became official until 1966 when President Lyndon Johnson signed the presidential proclamation that set aside the 3rd Sunday of June as Father's Day.

Today it is celebrated on a global basis and is a day when children give presents and cards to their Fathers to show their appreciation of having such a great Dad.

"A father is always making his baby into a little woman. And when she is a woman he turns her back again." -- Enid Bagnold

"It no longer bothers me that I may be constantly searching for father figures; by this time, I have found several and dearly enjoyed knowing them all." -- Alice Walker

"None of you can ever be proud enough of being the child of SUCH a Father who has not his equal in this world-so great, so good, so faultless. Try, all of you, to follow in his footsteps and don't be discouraged, for to be really in everything like him none of you, I am sure, will ever be. Try, therefore, to be like him in some points, and you will have acquired a great deal." -- Queen Victoria

"That is the thankless position of the Father in the family-the provider for all, and the enemy of all." -- J. August Strindberg

"It is a wise father that knows his own child." -- William Shakespeare

"It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was." -- Anne Sexton

"One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters." -- English Proverb

"To be a successful father. . . there's one absolute rule: when you have a kid, don't look at it for the first two years." -- Ernest Hemingway

"A man knows when he is growing old because he begins to look like his father." -- Gabriel García Márquez

"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father's protection." -- Sigmund Freud

"I watched a small man with thick calluses on both hands work fifteen and sixteen hours a day. I saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet, a man who came here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the language, who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work by the simple eloquence of his example." -- Mario Cuomo

"Be kind to thy father, for when thou wert young,
Who loved thee so fondly as he?
He caught the first accents that fell from thy tongue,
And joined in thy innocent glee."
-- Margaret Courtney

"If the new American father feels bewildered and even defeated, let him take comfort from the fact that whatever he does in any fathering situation has a fifty percent chance of being right." -- Bill Cosby

"Blessed indeed is the man who hears many gentle voices call him father!" -- Lydia M. Child