I'm going to skip all the rhetoric about "who's a what kind of father/mother/parent..."
I entered USAFA in 1979. I went to prep school in the late summer of 1978; and that November I received a HUGE box in the mail. All my classmates wondered "What did Steve get?"
So I opened it in my room with my roomates (Northwestern Prep, six of us in that room). It was a lawn/leaf bag filled with fresh (okay a week old) popcorn; salted to perfection, just like my dad used to make when we'd watch football together. In the popcorn (enough to feed a room of six for a week) was a note that said "dig deep." So I did and found an aluminum foil wrapped bundt cake. It was my mothers pound cake; an entire one, and it had a birthday card attached.
From that year (1978) until November 2008 (three months before my mother lost her battle with cancer) I received a cake for my birthday; wherever I was in the world: Guam, Saudi Arabia, Alaska, Kuwait, Egypt, CONUS locations by the grouping...it didn't matter, that cake always arrived and I always was transported back to my youth. When I received my cake in November 2008, my mom had a note attached: "I almost didn't make this, the pain is so bad, but I've done it for you since you were a small boy...and I wanted to do it one last time."
I froze each piece and it lasted three years.
Don't listen to folks that say "oh, it's silly, it won't mean much" and "it's no big deal..." FIND something that relates to their youth, their family, and closeness...and go with that, even if its only once per year. Mom taught me to make that cake when I was a kid...I've done it for decades; and I do it each year for my birthday.
But it never tastes as good as hers.
Steve
USAFA ALO
USAFA '83