woman named Larissa.  At one point during their conversation, she tells Jonas that they celebrated the release of an old person earlier that day.  Jonas asks her what the celebratory ceremony is like.  In a lot of ways it is similar to a funeral, except that the person is still alive . . . and will be killed a little bit later.  

Larissa tells Jonas that every release ceremony has a "telling."  Somebody gets up and narrates important parts of the person's life that is about to be released.  Other people are allowed to get up and speak as well about things they remember about that person.  The person being released is allowed to speak as well.  That's basically a goodbye speech.  

"Well there was the telling of his life … is always first. Then the toast. We all raised our glasses and cheered. We chanted the anthem. He made a lovely good-bye speech. And several of us made little speeches wishing him well."

After all of the speeches are made, the person is taken away to another room in order to be released.  Only members of the release committee are allowed to see and know what happens next.  That's why everybody assumes being released is happy and wonderful instead of murder.  

The Ceremony for the Ones is the occasion when a newchild is given a name and handed over to its parents. It is the first of all the Ceremonies and happens every December when each newchild born in the previous year turns one. Obviously, some of them will not be one year old yet because not all newchildren are born in December. This results in babies at various stages of development being brought by the Nurturers. Jonas remembers the occasion as always being noisy and fun because some of the Ones would be tottering around on unsteady legs, others would be crawling and some would be bawling in their nurturers' arms, such as those who were only a few days old and were wrapped in blankets.

If none of the newborns had been released, there would always be fifty of them at the ceremony. Newborns are released if they are part of a twin and the weaker one is released, or if it is found that the newborn is inadequate to become a full member of the community, either because of a congenital illness or some other defect. These newborns are sent Elsewhere.

All fifty of the newborns are consecutively handed over to their families and given their names. Their parents would be couples who have applied for a child and have been approved by the Elders. A family unit may have only two children, so a couple can only apply twice unless one of their children died because of an accident. They can then apply for a child and, in such an instance, their newchild, who will be the same gender as the deceased, will be seen as a replacement and will be allocated the deceased's name, such as with Caleb.  

The Naming is obviously an integral part of the Ceremony for Ones. Each newborn should be given a name. The names are decided on by a committee who enter the names in a list and allocate each newchild, who at this stage would still be only a number, a name. The list is prepared in advance and is kept at the Nurturing Center. Names are used only once to ensure that no one in the community has the same name. The names of those who were released or have disappeared are never repeated.

An exception would be where a family has lost a child and has sought a replacement, such as with Caleb. The family's previous child unfortunately drowned and so they were granted a replacement. The entire community had, in a Ceremony of Loss, murmured the deceased's name throughout the day, less and less frequently and softer and softer until his name was heard no more. He seemed to have never been a part of the community. Now, with Caleb, the name has been revived through a brief Murmur-of-Replacement Ceremony in which Caleb's name was repeated, softly at first and then with increasing volume, as if the previous Caleb has returned. 

On the momentous day, Jonas catches sight of his father who waves and has the baby Gabriel wave, too. It is with relief that Jonas sees Gabriel, for it means he has not been released. The first Ceremony commences and the new children born of the Birth Mothers are handed out to their new families by the Nurturers. Some of the young children come on the stage to proudly receive a new brother or sister; these babies have already been given a name.

One family is especially exuberant as they receive their new child name Caleb as a "replacement child." The original Caleb was a Four when he wandered from the group and fell into a river and drowned. Then, the community performs the "Murmur-of-Replacement Ceremony," reaching a crescendo as though reviving the old Caleb, whose name has been murmured to a whisper after his death. Another baby named Roberto is a replacement, but because the first was released and not lost, there is no Murmur ceremony.

Clearly, the ceremonies are sterile and impersonal, with no trace of what is considered normal to the reader, for they are devoid of true human feeling and interaction as even birth is institutionalized and involves the community, and expression is only communally chanted.

The answer to this is that we simply do not know what happens at the Ceremony of Two in The Giver.  Some of the ceremonies are described in the book, but others are not.  The Ceremony of Two is one of the ones that is not.

The only thing that we are told about the Ceremony of Two is that Jonas found it boring.  We see this on p. 57.  In the pages before that, we got a description of the ceremony in which newchildren are given to their families.  Then we are told that Jonas

sat politely through the ceremonies of Two and Three and Four, increasingly bored as he was each year.

This is the only time that the Ceremony of Two is mentioned in the book.   Therefore, we really do not know what happens in this ceremony. If we assume that it is like the other ceremonies, we can infer that Twos receive something that signifies their new age.   It might perhaps be something that has to do with learning to walk, but that is just speculation.   Do you have any thoughts about what children might get at their Ceremony of Two?

We learn about this ceremony in Ch. 6. The Murmur-of-Replacement Ceremony is performed when someone has died and a new child is given to a family and that new child has the same name as the person who died - hence, there is a "replacement.

In the ceremony, which happens once a year with the others, the entire crowd slowly and quietly begins to murmur the new child's name. Then, they get progressively louder and quicker as they say the name. It seems that this somehow imprints the name on the child, while it also reminds the community that this name is incorporated into the community again. It breathes life back into the name, so to speak.

Because this ceremony is only performed once in the book, it is unclear if this ceremony is done for every person who dies and whose name is used again, or if it is only done when a family loses a child and then receive another child with the same name. This second scenario is what we see in Ch. 6 with the "replacement Caleb."

The Ceremony of Twelve starts with an introduction explaining how it is different than most community functions because it acknowledges differences.

Sameness is incredibly important to Jonas’s community.  Every aspect of their society is designed to get everyone to think and act the same.  The people are even genetically designed to look the same.  They have the same skin, eye, and hair color for the most part.

Everyone in the community progresses in age at the same rate.  All children born in a year “age” on the same day.  They are not born on the same day, but they share a common birthday in December.  The ceremonies in December advance them socially into the next age group.  Each ceremony involves a gift of some kind, anything from a name to a bicycle or a haircut.

Even in a community like this, people have to have different roles.  The community closely watches children as they near the age of twelve to determine their personality traits, their intelligence, and their predispositions to certain occupations. 

The ceremony begins with a speech given by the Chief Elder.

The speech was much the same each year: recollection of the time of childhood and the period of preparation, the coming responsibilities of adult life, the profound importance of Assignment, the seriousness of training to come. (Ch. 7)

The Chief Elder points out that this is the one time a year when differences are acknowledged.  This is because each person is called out and their history described, and then their assignment is announced. 

Before the individual speeches are given, the Chief Elder describes the group as a whole, pointing out its makeup by singling out personalities without naming the people yet.

She began to describe this year's group and its variety of personalities, though she singled no one out by name. She mentioned that there was one who had singular skills at caretaking, another who loved newchildren, one with unusual scientific aptitude, and a fourth for whom physical labor was an obvious pleasure. (Ch. 7)

The Chief Elder describes each child one by one and then gives the person the assignment.  She ends each individual speech by thanking the new Twelve for his or her childhood.  Jonas’s parents tell him that most people do not find their assignment a surprise, but Jonas has no specific skills that make him stand out, or so he thinks, so he does not know what his will be.

The Ceremony of Twelve is the last ceremony to be held on the second day of the two-day holiday. The children who participate in this ceremony are all very excited and anxious to find out what assignments they will be given. First, all of the twelves sit in chronological order by birth in the front seats. Jonas's number is nineteen, which means that he was the nineteenth child born during his birth year. His friend Asher's number is four, and Fiona was number eighteen. When the Chief Elder comes out, he or she gives a speech about childhood and how these children have completed this part of their lives.

Then, the Chief Elder reminds everyone about how important Assignments are to their community. Everyone has a duty to contribute to the community in order for everything to run smoothly. The training that the twelves will start soon is important as well, and should be taken seriously. The Chief Elder then says something that is only significant to twelves:

"This is the time . . . when we acknowledge differences. You Elevens have spent all your years till now learning to fit in, to standardize your behavior, to curb any impulse that might set you apart from the group . . . But today we honor your differences. They have determined your futures" (63).

Finally, the Chief Elder cites specific differences between this year's group, thanks the other elders and the selection committee, and then proceeds with handing out each child's assignments. Once a child receives his or her assignment, the Chief Elder says, "Thank you for your childhood" (71). The child then receives a packet of information for their new assignment and he or she sits down until the ceremony is over.

In Chapter 7 we see the beginning of the Ceremony of Twelve. The new twelves swap places with the new elevens, and then an initial speech is given by the Chief Elder. This speech is described as being pretty much the same each year, touching on:

recollection of the time of childhood and the period of preparation, the coming responsibilities of adult life, the profound importance of Assignment, the seriousness of training to come.

After this speech the Chief Elder goes on to say that what happens as part of this ceremony is an acknowledgement of differences. She then describes the group in general. Then the Assignments begin.

Since the society in the novel is an engineered society (not to mention a dystopian one), it is not surprising that this engineering begins at an early age. 

When children are born they are cared for at the Nurturing Center until they reach one. When they reach this age, they are considered Ones. At the ceremony each child is given a name and more importantly placed in a family to grow. Presumably the child grows as typical children do in the family unit. Not much is said about childhoods in the book. 

In one particular Ceremony of One, Jonas's father has Gabriel in his hand. Jonas is very happy about this, because this means that Gabriel has not been killed, which the community called being released. 

The Ceremony of Ten is an important rite of passage for young people as they begin the transition from childhood to adulthood. Children are required to have their hair cut to symbolize their growing maturity. The girls have their braids cut off and the boys are given drastically short haircuts that expose their ears.

Like all the ceremonies in this community, the Ceremony of Ten has deep symbolic significance. It represents the growing maturity of the community's children as they gradually learn to put away childish things and prepare for their imminent induction into the adult world. Long hair, especially the braided hair worn by girls, is associated with the carefree days of childhood. Its removal in the Ceremony of Ten indicates quite clearly that, from now on, the children who live in this community will never be the same again.