You put in these long hours; you put in these long days,
Now its time for you to smile, to dance, to be at rest
Thank you, we are already missing you. We wish you a happy retirement.
Here is to wishing you all the best.
You are the world’s greatest friend and colleague.

A Kindred Retirement for a Life Long Friend:
The years have flown by.
Some have been good. Some have been trying,
Some years have been impossible.
However, I could always count on one thing.
That is your smiling face,
Your kindred spirit lifted me on friendship wings.
Your unflinching friendship kept me afloat when life seemed destined to sink my heart.
So now, the day of your retirement is upon us, All I can say is that I wish you all the best.
You have been here for me all these years. You have been my rock, my true north.
You were always my friend in the trenches.
What more can I say then you and your work made me a better person.
So now, as you move on with this next step in your life,
Always know that you will have a friend in me.
Here is to wishing you all the best in the years to come.
My kindred friend, a good rest is well deserved.

Retirement wishes for a parent
Mom you raised me to always place value in a hard days work.
You raised me to always value the dollar, and what it means.
Everyday you put in long hours, Sleepless nights, and worrisome afternoons,
Just to make sure I had what I needed, and what I wanted.
Now its time for you to take a break,
To stretch your arms out wide,
Breathe in life, and enjoy all the success and honors you have achieved.
Nevertheless, you should always know one thing,
You can never retire from being the greatest mom in the world.
You were always there for me, now its time for me to be there for you.

Giving a retirement party to someone helps them put some closure to a part of their life that has become (in most cases) a good part of who they are. It’s not easy for any of us to stop doing something that we’ve been doing for years, so to think that it’s easy to stop working is wrong.

How do you plan a retirement party for the soon-to-be-retiree? That isn’t hard to do if you really know the person. Are they light-hearted, humorous, straight-laced or just laid-back? Whoever they are is how you need to design the party. Of course in every case, humor should definitely be a part of the party. Ask someone to write a few retirement poems for the person leaving their job as well as others making retirement speeches to him/her.

A few years back I had to help plan a retirement party for a co-worker who was a pretty laid-back type of guy. We wanted to give him a going away party that would help him remember that he was greatly appreciated as well as being missed after he retired. We had the party in the break room of our office to help keep the cost down so we could get him a retirement gift that we knew he would love during his golden years.

The man was balding (I think he had 12 strands of hair left), so we went ahead and bought a hair piece for him to wear at the party. Not just any hair piece, a purple one that would go well with the fact that he loved the Minnesota Vikings and never missed a game. We knew he would get a kick out of it. We also had a cake made up in the shape of a football helmet with the design of the team. We bought him quite few gag gifts that were also purple.

He thought that it was pretty funny a nice that we did this for him. What he didn’t expect was that we all chipped in and raised enough money for him and his wife to go to a home game of the Vikings. Let’s just say that we never saw him so excited in the 10+ years that he worked for the company. It was the perfect mens gift.

It’s been years since he retired and he still stops by every so often and talks with us and thanks us for the party as well as the gift. It’s something that he’ll remember for the rest of his life.