A great Father's Day gift idea is to take your Father on a trip down memory lane. This will make him feel special as you remind him of all kinds of cool things he did in the past. There are a few different ways you could go about this.
1. Have a party with all of his old friends. Call up some of your father's friends from highschool or college and get them together for a small reunion party. Go through old stuff and find your Father's yearbooks and college papers. Find anything that he saved from highschool or college and use it to decorate for the party. This may not be able to occur on Sunday, since most of his friends are probably Fathers themselves and will have plans, but you could have it the Friday evening or Saturday before Father's Day.
This will be a themed party. It could be a football theme if your Father played football. If it's football, go and find his old jersey or ask one of his friends to borrow theirs. Place old footballs around the room and get out old trophies. If your Father was a great cook in highschool, break out his old cookbooks and put them around the room. Use some of his old recipes to create the food that will be served at the party. If your Father was a musician, have everyone wear long-hair wigs and get some of the old records out of the basement. Find an old record player and play the tunes all night long!
2. Go somewhere he used to go. If your Father went to the local bowling alley every weekend when he was a teen, take him bowling. You can still grab together a group of his old friends and take them along for this evening of fun! If he liked to roller skate, then go to the old roller rink. You could try to reserve the rink for the evening and have them only play songs from when he was growing up. If he grew up in the 70's, have them play all disco music. If your Father spent his weekends at baseball games, organize a trip to see the team play. Preplan and get great seats so he is right in the action! Find that old hand pointing to number one, and get out his old mitt and take it along to catch fly balls!
3. Organize all of his old stuff to create a scenic memory. If you have more of a creative flair, and can't seem to round up old friends, and you don't live anywhere near where he used to go, you can create a memory book for him out of things from his past. Surely his parents may have kept some things of his from highschool, or maybe he did. See if you can find old movie ticket stubs, old baseball cards, old photos, and other memorabilia. Organize these together in a type of scrapbook, in chronological order. I would be willing to bet this is something he has been meaning to do for years, but never had the time. If you put all these things together, it will show him that his past means something to you. It will also be a way for him to keep his memories organized.
Why is the trip down memory lane such a great Father's Day gift idea? Do you remember the good old times in your life? Weren't most of them when you were growing up? Don't you sometimes wish you could relive those days? This will give your Father an escape from the present, and remind him of what times were had when he was growing up. He will relive great moments, such as when his team received the football trophy his senior year or when he set a new track record in the mile run. He will get to see some of his old friends, and talk about old times. He probably doesn't have alot of chance to do this now, with work and other responsibilities. This may just be the break he was looking for.
The other way this could go is that he'll remember how bad things were in highschool. He might recall how much peer pressure went on all the time and how people picked on him, and how he got grounded for two months for staying out late. He'll think about all the homework and early bedtimes and .... Then he'll be glad that his life is so much better now, now that he has a family and such wonderful, thoughtful, caring children.
