The Farlian Coming of Age ceremony is a celebration of a child starting adulthood. It is celebrated around the mid-teens, generally around age fourteen or fifteen possibly on or around the individual's birthday, and is an occasion that includes the whole family.
Celebration and Gift Giving
The coming-of-age celebration involves a gathering of the family of the person who is coming of age. These functions tend to also double as extended family reunions and gatherings, allowing cousins and family members who maybe haven’t seen each other in person for a long time to do so.
The family members that are able to meet up for the party, do so. To miss one of these events, or to not be invited in the first place, can really hurt people deeply, it is seen as a sign that you don’t care as much about them as they thought. This is how some family divisions and feuds start and can cause lifelong damage to relationships, no matter how close they were in the past.
The gift-giving ceremony involves the parents and elders of the child giving them a gift or two, normally an heirloom of Farlian making from before the destruction of the planet or an otherwise sentimental object. Common gifts are heirloom jewelry, clothing, or other artifacts relating to their homeworld or objects created using old Farlian patterns and blueprints. It is believed by the Farlians that they can keep their history and traditions alive by the gifts being related to their home planet.
After the official ceremony, the family holds a dinner and the party and reunion continue. The adults often drink and the teen whose celebration it is may be allowed to try alcohol for the first time -with parents' permission and overwatch of course.
After this celebration, the person who came of age may be allowed to do many more things as they are now no longer seen as a young child. After the ceremony, they are believed to be capable of taking on certain adult responsibilities like cleaning the ancestral shrine or learning the often lengthy family tree.
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