I'm really burned out on retirement ceremonies, and I was burned out way before it was my turn.
In the 1990s, the Navy went through a 25% downsizing. Training commands were hit especially hard. Many were forced to retire when they'd hit high-year tenure. A few were forced into early retirement, which in the military means "before you get your 20, and at a substantial discount to the usual pension".
One of my shipmates, Bill, got the early-retirement letter and told the chain of command that he didn't want a ceremony. He continued on through the retirement checklist, and the week before he checked out on terminal leave he had his interview with the CO. Shortly after Bill left the building for lunch, the CO called an immediate wardroom meeting. He said "I know Bill said he didn't want a retirement ceremony, but I got the feeling from him that he wants a retirement ceremony. Make it happen." So we did.
At the ceremony Bill said "You know I asked for no ceremony, and I meant it. You guys really didn't have to force me into this." We said "No, Bill, we really did" and told him about the CO's meeting. The day left a bad taste in everybody's mouth... except for the CO's mouth, of course.
At one point my spouse's command was holding retirement ceremonies three times per week for over six months. The PACFLT band was put on a quota limit so that they could keep up with the requests for them to play at the ceremonies. Merely the act of arranging all the logistics for the (frequently unwilling) retiree would suck up a significant portion of the workweek.
When it was my turn, I said "No ceremony" and "No retirement award" about sixty times. The CO and I had served together before, I thought he was a psychopathic jerk, and I wanted nothing to do with him. When I went into the CO's office for my retirement interview, I kept it as short as possible and left as soon as he was done.
When I walked out his door I was ambushed with an awards ceremony. The CO smirked "You didn't expect me to let you get away with that, did you?" and gave me my award.
The problem was that I had expected no award, and had been planning to trade on that leverage to leave behind a slew of awards for my troops. Now it looked as if I'd back-doored them and cut them out of the whole thing to boot. Instead of having the award pinned on in front of them, and being able to share the ceremony with them, I'd been forced to do it in the CO's office with a bunch of staffers who had little to do with our department. I ended up racing back to my department and calling together the troops to tell them what had happened, what I'd intended to have happen, and how I felt that my award was really theirs for all of the support I'd received from them over the years.
Then I called together the supervisors and explained who else was going to get awards after I'd left. Major damage control, but it worked out.
A few weeks later on my "last day in the office" I came in at the usual time. I'd already said my farewells so nobody was hanging around for me. I left at 9 AM for "an appointment" and didn't return. Sure enough, word got out that the CO had wanted to see me. I suspect that I'd been set up for a retirement ceremony. I never returned his calls and he never made an issue of it.
So... stick to your guns, tell everyone what you want, and make your feelings public enough that the boss can't decide to do it his way instead of your way.