<p>Hey, so, we are reaching the end of undergrad with D1, and she is not heading straight to grad school…</p>
<p>So, what did you guys do to commemorate the end of your kid’s college?</p>
<p>No idea is too big or too small, here. I’m at a complete loss.</p>
<p>DW, DD, and I will attend my S graduation ceremony. We will hang around couple days in Boston. S will go to work but does not have plan after the graduation week. He probably will hang around with friends or travel before going to work.</p>
<p>D isn’t going to participate in commencement. Her big deal is the end-of-semester show that she’s in, the weekend before graduation. We’ll be there for that because it means a lot to her. We’re there for 5 days and will probably take her and her crew out to dinner one night, and she and DH are going to go car shopping. Otherwise, not much in the way of specific plans. It does kind of feel like a sad little graduation celebration to me, but she likes it that way. We almost came to blows over her HS graduation, so I’m trying to back wayyyy off this time, and just go with the flow.</p>
<p>One idea I’m cooking up is to surprise her with a presentation bouquet on stage at her show. Maybe you could work in flowers somehow?</p>
<p>We attended our kids’ graduations. We gave D1 a new Macbook as her Dell laptop was pretty tapped out. S1 got a new Dell laptop - but he didn’t get around to choosing one to buy for 6 or 7 months. We’ll attend S2’s graduation and offer him a new laptop, too.</p>
<p>D1 was going off to work, so we got her a nice pair of pearl earrings. D1 was very social in college had many good friends, and we have also met some of them over the years. We hosted a barbecue for her friends and parents.</p>
<p>My nephew is graduating this May. My sister is hosting a brunch at a small inn. My nephew is getting commissioned, so a lot of family and friends are attending the ceremony.</p>
<p>poetgrl - congratulations!</p>
<p>I’m kind of wishing for a simpler graduation event. DS is the first grandchild on all sides. There are 9 of us heading to a 3 day graduation marathon. Five of the 9 are 75-85 years old. I am in charge of all the arrangements including airline, hotel, dining and logistics.
I could only get dinner reservations for one night, so I’m thinking of ordering platters for a casual get together for the other evening.
We had planned to buy DS a modest car for graduation, but since he has decided on grad school, which he will pay for himself, we have decided to give him a check that he can apply to his expenses.
Three days after we return home, the moving van arrives!</p>
<p>For me, it was more about having my family together, which is increasingly rare these days. I rented a minivan and DH, my other kids, and I trekked out for graduation weekend. One dinner was just us, two others were larger events (planned by DS’s friends). We tossed around the idea of having some kind of celebration at home a few weeks after graduation but. . . oops–never happened.</p>
<p>Yes, she’s leaving the country to start her career pretty quickly. I don’t think she will be coming “home.”</p>
<p>But, I like the idea of having an event of some variety for her friends and their families. We know quite a few of them pretty well at this point. </p>
<p>Maybe rent a place out and do finger food of some sort and cocktails. </p>
<p>Should we send the invitations to the parents, as well, or just the kids?</p>
<p>D1 handled everything. She sent an invite to her friends and it said parents were included. She asked for RSVP. We rented a lake house, we had it on the lawn. It was catered to keep it simple. We kept it very informal, so people could just drop by. We had a very good time. It was fun to reminisce with her friends’ parents and talk about where the kids were all going off to after graduation. Around my kid’s campus there are a lot of places one could rent out for parties, and the school also rents out some facility for parties. But I think you will need to do it soon.</p>
<p>Perfect. I will have her do the invitations and get the RSVPs. I already know the place I want to get. </p>
<p>thanks for all the ideas.</p>
<p>We didn’t do a big party or anything for D1 - immediately after graduation she was going on a trip to North Carolina with a bunch of college friends and when she arrived home she was moving the next day to her new town 2 1/2 hours away and starting a job two days later!</p>
<p>As a gift, we paid for her first two months rent to get her off on the right foot financially. She really appreciated that.</p>
<p>My parents and grandparents went to my commencement, and we had a small party. Parents, grandparents, and I think my aunt and one of my cousins came. I had two or three friends stop by. It was a burgers on the grill sort of thing.</p>
<p>My parents had a huge open house for HS graduation and my sister graduated HS the same year I finished undergrad, so they didn’t want to make too big of a deal of my graduation and overshadow my sisters hs graduation. a month later I was happy with what we did though, I hadn’t wanted the huge party in HS in the first place. By the time I finished college I was too exhausted to do something like that again!</p>
<p>Promised to pay for her Med. School.</p>
<p>The kids planned the whole thing and held a party on the lawn of their house–a catered pig roast. Of course, the parents paid, but they did all the work/organization and did a surprisingly good job for a bunch of young college men. (Almost said “boys”! LOL.) All the families were there and it was quite nice to socialize with the parents of his friends from college. It’s the custom on their campus. Everybody had them, so there were lots of comings and goings all afternoon. Graduation was Sunday morning and the party was Saturday afternoon. A very nice time!
We didn’t celebrate with friends from home, just with the college friends…The whole high school graduation party thing was enough for those friends!</p>
<p>When S graduated, we went on. Three week trip, starting with an overnight train ride in sleeper cars from LA to Seattle. On the way driving back to LA, we stayed at many lovely national parks–Ranier, Crater Lake, redwood, Sequoia. We also visited relatives in SF and went crabbing in OR. We had a blast. We also helped our kids move from one place to storage unit and back at the beginning and end of road trip. </p>
<p>When D graduated, we didn’t do much other than having a nice meal and then going to watch her cousin graduate at another campus in same city. She actually needed to do another year of classes. Now, when she should be totally done this May, we’ll see what she wants to do. So far, we’ve gotten mixed messages from her. She may want to try to nail down an internship or something. She’s not as much of a planner as S was. He had 3 job offers in hand by Feb of SR year and did internships summer before HR and SR years.</p>
<p>D1 graduated last year. We went down for the graduation a day early and went to a baseball game, the day of the graduation we took all the grandparents out to lunch beforehand, then the next weekend we had a party for family and friends including a cake from Susie’s Cakes, a keg and a taco guy. She is getting her masters in August and thinks we should have another party, but I am tired.</p>
<p>You must throw a good party Tx5athome. ;)</p>
<p>For both our sons, we attended the ceremonies and took them out to eat.
Neither had any desire to go to the giant ceremonies for all the graduating students.
So we just attended a (big) departmental ceremony for each.
S1’s was spread out over two days because he also commissioned into the Navy. The Navy ceremony far outshined the university ceremony.</p>
<p>We gave them each a nice watch w/ their initials and the school name / date engraved on the back. Also gave them the money that was left in their college savings accts. for starting life in the adult world.
Both sons were really anxious to meet up w/ their friends and head off to graduation parties so DH and I gave them a hug and headed for home pretty quickly.</p>
<p>We’re doing a graduation lunch with my family, partner’s family, and significant others the day of graduation. I walk at both 8:45 AM and 7:00 PM so it’s going to be a longggggg day. I’m hoping not to have to walk in the morning one. A week later, my family and I are going on our first real family vacation- a cruise :). </p>
<p>Later in the summer, we’re going to have a picnic with the organization that I used to be on the board for (they other board members have seen me grow up and treat me like a daughter) and some close friends back home.</p>
<p>I asked my S if he would like to host a get together at his apartment or invite some friends to go to dinner the night before graduation. I offered to pay. </p>
<p>He told me his group of friends/graduates had already planned a get together at one of their rented houses for after the graduation ceremonies for friends and families. He asked to invite a very close friend and her family and to go to a Middle Eastern restaurant that I had taken him to the night before freshman move-in. I was touched that he had remembered it fondly. We also invited his Mom and step-grandmother. It was a hoot all sitting on the floor eating with our fingers and having the live entertainment.</p>
<p>It really is a situation where I suggest letting the student make the decisions within what you are willing to offer. The graduates seem to realize that this is both an end and a beginning. Some of them will not see each other for a long time, if ever.</p>
<p>My son soon departed to Taiwan for his job. As you mentioned, some do not seem like they ever return “home,” but I have found that our bond has stayed strong.</p>