Easy & Meaningful Memorial Day Party Favor & Idea

With Memorial Day coming up I know many of us will be gathering with friends and family for barbecues and celebrating the onset of summer.    I think it is important to pause and take a  time to honor those who have fallen in service of our country and given us all the freedom we are so blessed to enjoy. 

I came up with the following; an easy, inexpensive and quick way to add extra meaning to your celebrations this coming weekend.  You can put these together in minutes!

 Small, hand held flags are for sale and available just about anywhere right now for mere pennies a piece.    These flags are about 3" x 5" and come attached to a 12" wooden dowel.  

How I made these unique was by finding some favorite quotes (I'll provide a list at the end of the post) relevant to the service and sacrifice of soldiers.  I printed them off and included interpretations and meanings of each quote. 

I cut each quote out to fit inside the flags and attached one to each of the wooden dowels simply by sliding it underneath.

Next, I rolled the quotes up inside the flags

I tied the flags with a small string.  I used some hemp which I had on hand.

You can place one at each setting, tuck into a napkin or stand inside their glass.  You could gather a lot of them together into a vase and pass it around a campfire or the bbq and let each person read the quote aloud.

These are simple and festive favors but very meaningful at the same time.

I gathered quotes from some books we have in our library and from around the web.  Here are some great examples:  

1. "Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth." -George Washington 

2. "Blow out, you bugles, over the rich Dead! There's none of these so lonely and poor of old, But, dying, has made us rarer gifts than gold." -- Rupert Brooke

3. "Life is eternal; and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight." -- Rossiter W. Raymond

4. "The brave die never, though they sleep in dust: Their courage nerves a thousand living men." -- Minot J. Savage

5."A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself." -- Joseph Campbell

6. "I have never been able to think of the day as one of mourning; I have never quite been able to feel that half-masted flags were appropriate on Decoration Day.  I have rather felt that the flag should be at the peak, because those whose dying we commemorate rejoiced in seeing it where their valor placed it.  We honor them in a joyous, thankful, triumphant commemoration of what they did." -- Benjamin Harrison

7. "One lives in the hope of becoming a memory." -- Antonio Porchia

8. "Who kept the faith and fought the fight; The glory theirs, the duty ours." -- Wallace Bruce

9. "The patriot's blood is the seed to freedom's tree." -- Thomas Campbell

10. "The best road to progress is freedom's road." -- John F. Kennedy

11. "The flames can not burn away the past. They only make the shadows leap higher." -- Max Payne

12. "But the freedom that they fought for, and the country grand they wrought for, Is their monument to-day, and for aye." -- Thomas Dunn English

13. "Decoration Day is the most beautiful of our national holidays.... The grim cannon have turned into palm branches, and the shell and shrapnel into peach blossoms." -- Thomas Bailey Aldrich

14. "Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." -- Mark Twain

15. "There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires." -- Nelson Mandela

16. "The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example." -- Benjamin Disraeli

17. "Perform, then, this one act of remembrance before this Day passes - Remember there is an army of defense and advance that never dies and never surrenders, but is increasingly recruited from the eternal sources of the American spirit and from the generations of American youth." -- W.J. Cameron

18. "Freedom means you are unobstructed in living your life as you choose. Anything less is a form of slavery." -- Wayne Dyer

19. "And they who for their country die shall fill an honored grave, for glory lights the soldier's tomb, and beauty weeps the brave." -- Joseph Drake

20. "137 years later, Memorial Day remains one of America's most cherished patriotic observances. The spirit of this day has not changed - it remains a day to honor those who died defending our freedom and democracy." -- Doc Hastings

21. "Are they dead that yet speak louder than we can speak, and a more universal language?  Are they dead that yet act?  Are they dead that yet move upon society and inspire the people with nobler motives and more heroic patriotism?" -- Henry Ward Beecher

22. "Above all, we must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women." -- Ronald Reagan

23. "Although no sculptured marble should rise to their memory, nor engraved stone bear record of their deeds, yet will their remembrance be as lasting as the land they honored." -- Daniel Webster

24. "True freedom is tolerant. It gives people the right to live and think in new ways." -- John Twelve Hawks

25. "Better to die fighting for freedom then be a prisoner all the days of your life." -- Bob Marley

26. "Only the dead have seen the end of war." -- Plato

The following link provides 25 quotes along with an interpretation of each one, especially nice when you're celebrating with kids.

25 Memorial Day Quotes with Interpretations

Have a blessed and safe Memorial Day,

Joining:Romantic Home Country French Cottage Charm of Home Between Naps on the Porch
Pink Saturday  Strut Your Stuff Saturdays
Friday Favorites Flaunt It Fridays
 Fabulously Creative Friday 
Funky Junk Interiors