Father's Day only became an official holiday in Switzerland last year. It hasn't really caught on, although the stores are doing their best to get the word out. It may take some time, though, Valentine's day isn't real big here, either. But we celebrate it whether the calendar tells us to or not, especially since we have such great Dads in our lives.
As mentioned before, part of Chris' gift was a quiet Saturday. But we wanted to give him something he could hold as well. But he doesn't really like cluttery stuff, and the "toys" he wants are way expensive guitars and other music equipment. I have never had much luck getting him a really "good" gift. He is always appreciative and polite, but I can tell that it is more out of good manners than true delight. He, on the other hand, is a great gift giver, although the banana stand from our first Christmas will live on infamy forever. :) Still have it and use it though, so it ended up not being such a bad gift after all, not just very romantic or sentimental. Anyway, I saw this idea on the scrapbook site I like to read and thought it would be perfect for our Papa. Turns out I was right!
I took the kids to the store and we picked out a bunch of candy. This was very hard for them to see all that candy being purchased knowing none of it was for them. I bought them a consolation prize, but still, when someone is getting four bags of candy and you get one piece, it's a little tough. There wasn't much complaining or whining, though. I was surprised. We had to be really careful and only buy kinds that he wasn't allergic to. This took quite a bit of time as both Nicholas and I read every single ingredient on every single label to make sure we weren't giving him the gift of death!
Then we headed over to the garden store to pick out a nice big pot. It needed to be tall enough to hold the wooden skewers, but not so fat that our bouquet would look straggly. Mission accomplished! We also got some florist foam to shove in the bottom to hold the skewers in place. We did all this on Friday, but ended up not having time to actually make the gift that evening. Saturday we were at the flower island all day, so we ended up letting Papa take a nice long nap after lunch while we made his gift. He needed to sleep off the huge slice of cheesecake anyway, so it was all good.
I painted the kids' hands and had them put their handprints all around the pot. I stamped their names above their hands using the same paint and some of my alphabet stamps. While that dried, we taped on all the individual candy bars on to the wooden skewers. This required quite a bit of teamwork, because someone had to hold the skewer in place on the back of the candy, while someone else put the tape over the skewer. Noah was our cheerleader, and Sarah and Sophie ended up doing the bulk of the holding, while I did the taping. Then we arranged our "flowers" in the foam and stuck in Lindor balls in between the stems to hide the foam. We ate the ones with hazelnuts in them as a reward for our labors.
I thought it looked pretty good and took the following picture.
Sarah was of the opinion that it didn't really look like a bouquet and needed something else to finish it off. So, we decided to tie ribbon around each individual candy bar and curl it to look more festive. I did the tying, Sophie did the cutting, Sarah did the judging. Eventually we were able to achieve the look she had in mind and we impatiently waited for Papa to wake up so we could give it to him. And waited. And waited. And waited. Finally, Noah could not stand the suspense anymore and I agreed we could go in and wake him by singing our own version of "Mother, I love you"
Papa, we love you, Papa, we do. We are so glad that we came down to you. When we are near you, we love to hear you singing so softly that you love us,too. Papa, we love you, we love you , we do.
He was very pleased and impressed. Noah said, "Do you want to share, Papa?" haha, but in this way cute little voice, not demanding or anything. Chris was about to give him some, because he is truly powerless to resist his children, but I jumped in and explained that this was for Papa to take to work since he was allergic to so many of the treats there. We had other treats for us. That seemed to end it for Noah. He knows all about allergies and having special treats for the sufferer. His particular favorite is chocolate soy milk, and nobody else better drink it.:)
We called both our Dads and had good chats. What a blessing to come from "goodly parents" who are honestly trying to do the best they can with the knowledge they have. What a difference a good father can make in the life of a child, old or young. Thanks, Dad. Thanks, John. We love you both!