Homes4Her: Father's Day Gift Basket ideas

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Father's Day Gift Basket ideas

Mother's Day is closing, and the internet is full of ideas for gifts for moms... but Father's Day is coming after that, and there is NOT a lot of ideas for gifts for dads. It is pretty easy, actually.

If you are a father, you will get:
- a necktie
- car maintenance stuff
- sports things - surprisingly much golf things. Apparently American dads play a lot of golf.
- fishing and other outdoorsy stuff like camping
- grilling things
- beer things
- tools

Apparently dads don't read. Ever.
Dads don't cook either. Except they grill and that's kind of silly, too. Every dad believes to know exactly how to grill, but in reality they are pretty worthless in it, and the whole family is in it, telling dad he's amazing, while secretly laughing at him.
Dads don't have any other hobbies but cars, sports and fishing.
Dads don't do gardening.

It's the same thing with moms, though, even though there is more to go to. It's all mostly the same, you see. All mothers love pink. And all they care about is: cooking, housekeeping, gardening, baking, makeup and jewelry. Moms read. Romance novels. Moms also watch romantic movies. And every mom deserves - and dreams about - a spa gift. No matter if she even has a bath tub, she will get a spa gift with bath oils and salts and candles and lady magazines, romance novels and everything smells lavender and roses and is pink or purple.
Because when you become a parent, you become automatically a classic, white, suburban, middle-class, middle-aged person from 50s. Unavoidable.

And I hate that.
We don't have a car. My husband is a geeky kind of a guy, indoors, scholarly, enjoys reading and writing and arts and crafts. We also live in an apartment, not in a house. So no grilling for him. But he enjoys cooking.
And the truth is that a lot of dads are of this kind.
I suppose guys have given up on the idea of getting something they actually like for gifts, so they don't expect anything either. And I think it's a pity.

In the rest of the society we are slowly accepting the fact that adults now-a-days are pretty much such bigger teenagers. We are accepting that some middle-aged men want to play video games, a thing they have enjoyed for 40 years. I enjoy doing things I enjoyed already when I was a kid, like reading. Duh. I really don't understand why people look down to adult video game players. Considering that it's apparently totally acceptable for a middle-aged woman to be so Disney princess crazy that she has a YouTube channel of herself dressing up as a princess and singing songs from the movies... It's so acceptable, they actually arrange "princess weddings" at Disney Land... Are you trying to tell me that's not hanging on your childhood, being childish and not wanting to grow up, but playing video games is?

No. I don't buy it. I mean, be who you are and embrace it, but allow others to be who they are as well.

So - it's obvious kids won't know their dad (or mom) well enough to give them a gift that is actually adjusted to their personality, but kids aren't supposed to, either. It's the job of the other parent to know their spouse and lead the kids.

So, how to build a gift basket?

How to build a great Autumn gift basket?

1) find a container.Be a little adventurous and think about the different containers dad uses today. Bowls, buckets, bags...? A simple brown paperbag is totally fine.

2) color: your dad's favorite color. If you don't know, use the colors most of his clothes have. Safe enough.

3) there should be something to please all five senses; something nice to look at, to eat, to smell, to touch and to hear.

4) what does he do with most of his free time? built the basket around that.

Man's reading gift basket

Man's writing gift basket

Scholar's gift basket