Make Graduate Feel Special This Year With These Suggestions
We may be coming up to Christmas right now, but there are plenty of teenagers graduating short courses and university courses this side of the year who have their graduation plans iced over. Winter balls and graduation at Christmas have all been canceled, just like the kids trying to graduate and celebrate in the summertime. It doesn’t matter whether your child is in college, is taking online classes, or is trying to graduate high school. They deserve to be celebrated when they complete school. Graduation is a huge milestone, and it should be something celebrated in a big way, and children of any age will be disappointed if their celebration is canceled.
The good news is that there is a lot that you can do to make sure that your graduate feels like they have crossed that finish line and are the center of attention for once. Social distancing and lockdowns make graduation celebrations difficult. Still, we’ve got a list of excellent graduation celebrations suggestions so that you can make sure your child is graduating and celebrated for their hard work.
Shout Their Successes
Every single graduate out there deserves to have their successes shouted from the rooftops. MagnetStreet high school graduation announcements are the perfect way to do this, as you can tell your local community newspaper, your friends, and your family that they have succeeded. The next step in life needs to be acknowledged, and shouting their success with their graduation cards will do that. You want them to feel celebrated, and you want to elevate them, which is the best place to start. Circulating a graduation announcement to family and friends will announce to them that there is a graduate in your house and that they should remember to celebrate them!
Graduation Celebrations: Senior Showers
Whether they are in college or high school, the seniors in your street and even your house deserve to be showered with gifts. So, you can’t throw a huge party, but that doesn’t mean that graduates shouldn’t feel cheered on. Get the neighbors together and shower the seniors in the best way possible, with gifts, cash, and notes of congratulation from everyone. It doesn’t have to cost much, especially if you all pitch in and make the kids in your street feel important.
Use Social Media
There are plenty of ways to acknowledge and recognize the seniors who are about to graduate. Social media is a great place to start, with a group or page set up for people to leave messages and notes to say “well done.” People can leave these notes with messages, wishes, and memories shared in one place! Social media is a great way to get in touch with everyone, as you can all come together in one place and then show your graduate how people appreciate them.
Graduation Celebrations: Get Photos Taken
Many photographers aren’t working right now in the middle of a pandemic, so a photoshoot may seem impossible. Did you know that you can hire a cap and gown from stores online? You can hire the right colors for their school and have a photoshoot in your garden! If you get them to contact the whole year (or as many people as possible on social media), you can all take individual photos and then have a digital genius use them to collate a larger group photo! You can even get everyone in a large hall or field and take a unique photo from above of everyone together. It may not be the ceremony you were imagining, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not going to be a fun way to celebrate the moment.
Get Those Cars Out!
On those would-be graduation days, get everyone into their cars and do a beeping drive by! Get the graduates out on the front lawns and honk as you go. Car parades are a fun and exciting way to literally shout to the world that you are honoring a graduate. Let all of your family and friends know your plans here, and they can drive by specifically to honk and cheer for your graduate.
Decorate Outside
Graduation celebrations: balloons, personalized banners, and photographs of your graduate from their first day of school right through to graduation make for excellent outdoor decor. Colleges of your graduate will make them feel like they really have achieved something. You can decorate the inside of the house and the outside, and you can put together a wreath of photos to make them feel appreciated, too. Celebrating their win is so much more important this year with COVID-19 tripping so many people up and stopping studies, so why not go all out and make it a huge celebration with as much decor as possible?
Show Off Achievements
Create the ultimate memory gift with a scrapbook of all of your graduate achievements over their school career. Their top achievements can be noticed, put together, and shown to them so that they can see how far they came over their years in school. You do not need to make your graduate feel anything less than completely special, and a recognition of their achievements throughout the school is something that they can carry through their college years and beyond.
Plan A Dinner
Whether it’s for the people in your household or a Zoom dinner, you can prepare their favorite foods and make sure that you get the whole family involved. Dress up your graduate in their cap and gown and have every single member of the family you can get together involved. If you’re all on camera or in a restaurant, they can let your graduate know how proud they are of them and make them feel special.
Add A Yard Sign
Remember that announcement you did earlier? Why not blow it up and display it as a yard sign? You can let the world know your pride you feel in your graduate, and you can honor them and make them feel worth it at the same time. If you add a sign to the front yard, you’ll notice people beeping as they go by!
Bake A Cake!
Easy, fun, and a tasty way to celebrate; you can either do this as a surprise or get your graduate involved in making the cake. This cake can either be of a mortarboard for their graduation, or a simple sponge to make them feel like they have something to celebrate properly! Cake always goes down well, and everyone can have a slice, too!
A Grad Gift To Remember
Have you thought about what you want to give to your graduate as congratulations for their big day? Some people are fortunate enough to give their graduates cars and big gifts like vacations and more. If you can’t afford the big gifts, consider going small with something more memorable, like jewelry or a certificate framed to commemorate the day. Your graduate is likely ready to take a breather and get ready for the next steps in their future, and you can mark that moment with a gift that will really make them feel fantastic.
Put Together A Video
If you want to give your graduate a unique gift always to remember, get everyone in their friendship circle and in the family to put together a video. Everyone can put a clip forward for you to put together in one long video. Those good wishes can really help your graduate to feel like they are the important ones for the day – which they absolutely are!
Host A Grad Party – Online
Social distancing and lockdown may have prevented you from putting together the best graduation party ever, but that doesn’t mean that you can still have one. Get festive with fun online invites and get everyone to decorate their rooms with ribbons and banners to get in the party spirit. You can have karaoke, nibbles and even dance parties! Graduation parties are a rite of passage, so for your graduate and their friends, put together a graduation party for after lockdowns have ended, and you can party without social distancing. If you make an effort to put this together for later on in the next year, your graduate won’t feel like they have missed out!
Graduation Celebrations: Have Your Own Ceremony
You may not be in a huge hall, and they may not be able to walk the official boards, but you can still host your own graduation ceremony. Keep it little and special with a senior speech, homemade diploma, commencement address from you as parents, and you can even list off all the achievements that you are proud of from them over the years. Having your own ceremony is not the same, sure, but nothing is, and we all have to make the best of a rubbish 2020 this year!
While graduation celebrations may not look like you expected, it doesn’t mean that you can’t celebrate!
