Don't look at your Dad's world with your eyes, look at the world with your Dad's eyes...

Father's Day like most other celebrations is an invented day, which sounds crass, but do you know why it was invented?

 In early 1908, Anna Jarvis held a memorial service in Grafton, West Virginia, U.S.A.  to honour her Mother who had died 3 years earlier. This was the first observance of Mother's Day and Jarvis spent much of her time in the ensuing years endeavouring to create a national holiday.  Mother's Day, after her persistent efforts, was finally proclaimed a national holiday in 1914 by President Woodrow Wilson. 

The first observance of Father's Day was held on July 5, 1908, in Fairmont, West Virginia,U.S.A. in the Williams Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church South.  Grace Golden Clayton was mourning the loss of her father when, on December 1907, the Monongah Mining Disaster killed 361 men, 250 of them fathers, leaving around a thousand fatherless children. Clayton suggested her pastor Robert Thomas Webb to honor all those fathers. Perhaps inspired by Jarvis, (who's Mother's Day was only a couple of months earlier and only a short trip from Fairmont) or possibly just in reaction to the great loss and grief of the disaster Clayton inspired this Day.  She was however a quiet person, who never promoted the event or even talked to other persons about it, unlike Jarvis.

There were many similar celebrations across the U.S.A. and the World in the following years and in 1913 a bill to accord national recognition of the holiday was introduced in Congress, but was not successful.  In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson went to Spokane to speak in a Father's Day celebration and hoped to make the day official official, however Congress again resisted, fearing that it would become commercialized, were they right in retrospect, or is any celebration of Fatherhood important?  

In 1924 US President Calvin Coolidge recommended  that the day be observed by the nation, but stopped short of issuing a national proclamation.  In 1957, Maine Senator Margaret Chase Smith wrote a proposal accusing Congress of ignoring fathers for 40 years while honoring mothers, thus "[singling] out just one of our two parents". Nut it wasn't until 1966, President Lyndon Johnson issued the first presidential proclamation honoring fathers, designating the third Sunday in June as Father's Day. Six years later, the day was made a permanent national holiday when President Richard Nixon signed it into law in 1972.

Whilst Father's Day is now certainly a commercialised celebration, its original intentions and its supporters over the years, both political and civilian, are genuine and meaningful.  It is up to us now to decide how with support this day and how we celebrate our Father's.  At WORLD we know that the greatest luxury is time, so make this your gift for your Dad!!!  

Gift giving is a fine art that requires more thought, than money.  If Dad has been a particularly good boy and you'd like to give him something a little special, then we can help.  Think about who your Father is, what makes him that incredible individual you never stop looking up to, what makes him smile or triggers his curiosity - begin your present buying in his shoes and you will be successful.  

Don't look at your Dad's world with your eyes, look at the world with your Dad's eyes...here's a few ideas that might be inspiring...