9 Interesting Father’s Day Facts
Father’s Day is celebrated on the third Sunday of June, although one must note that this is not a universally accepted day. More interestingly, Mother’s Day has been a far more popular holiday across the world and its celebration has been in vogue for much longer than Father’s Day. In fact, the whole idea of celebrating Father’s Day came into existence because of the existence of something called Mother’s Day.
1. Sonora Smart, was the first known proponent of the idea of celebrating Father’s Day. This was out of respect for her dad, a single father widowed after his wife died in childbirth. That her father raised 6 kids all by himself and that he was a civil war veteran had two interesting consequences. June, which was the month of his birth, was picked for celebrating Father’s Day. Secondly, at a later stage the day was also an occasion celebrated in the honor of army troops.
2. Sonoro Smart went on to pick the rose as the flower, given on this day. While red roses are given to fathers who are still alive, the white roses are used to remember those who have passed away.
3. Although Sonora Smart, later Mrs John Dodd, came up with the idea way back in 1909, the idea received great recognition in 1924 when Calvin Coolidge, then the US President backed the idea. While the day became fairly popular during World War II, it was in 1966 that a national holiday was declared to commemorate Father’s Day. Lyndon Johnson, the US president at the time was instrumental in making this possible. It permanently entered the books in 1972 when Richard Nixon was the president of USA. Since then, it has caught on, and is celebrated across the world especially in UK, India, France, China, Greece and Canada. Interestingly though, Father’s Day is celebrated in September in Australia, in November in Finland and in December in Thailand.
4. The popularity of Father’s Day can be judged from a claim made by Hallmark, one of the most well-known card makers of the world. Hallmark claims that Father’s Day is No.5 among all the card-sending holidays celebrated around the world. Interestingly, more than 800 card designs are used by Hallmark alone to celebrate Father’s Day. It works both ways too, with a massive number of dads giving cards to their sons and daughters. ‘Dad from daughter’ greeting cards though are among the most popular ones given out on Father’s Day. Another staggering number is the fact that almost 90% of the card buyers for Father’s Day are women, a number comprising largely of daughters and wives.
5. There are interesting statistics about gifts too. A whopping $1 billion is spent on presents for Father’s Day. Mostly, it comprises flowers, funny cards and ties. As per surveys, this spending is only likely to increase in the future although, it is much less than the amount spent for Mother’s Day. While some buy gifts for fathers and stepdads, a lot of people buy gifts for husbands, sons, brothers and friends as well. Apart from neckties, gifts like golf clubs and fishing rods are also quite popular.
