Finally a new hat

The summertime is always a time of festivities graduations and also in the Finnish Lutheran church with all the weddings and also the confirmations for the adolescents that turn 15 during the same year are celebrated.

When it is time for confirmation in many places around the country you are going away for a week’s confirmation camp and have the confirmation itself some time later. The previous winter has normally already been full with church visits and Sunday masses and weekly gatherings with the vicar for the requested amount of education.

The difficult thing with all this is not catering for all the relatives and friends attending your home for the celebrations, nor to house your guests for the night. No the real problem lies in what to get the youngsters.

Flowers with a single rose to give away is one among the most common ones, also a nice tradition, jewellery in various looks and to everybody’s taste is also usual, but many times you just have no idea of what to get them as they today have “everything”. Nowadays a gift voucher has become more and more acceptable and also in many cases handy for the giver to get, even by a late date, and is appreciated by the receiver as they can get many vouchers from the same place and get to buy more and bigger, more expensive things of their own choice.

I remember that we used to have a list of things we wished that our parents kept for birthdays and graduations. Everybody who was invited to these occasions was told about the list and nobody got doubles as book was kept on what was going to be bought, kind of similar to a wedding list. I have done the same thing with the off-spring as has my sister as well during the years with great success.

Now I just have to decide whether to be original and inventive, and get something for the confirmed in forth nights time or just be plain, old and boring and give away another gift-voucher and a single rose as everybody else.

Finally an excellent reason for me to get a new hat!