I got a Father’s Day gift for your dad. But why am I buying stuff for your dad? It’s not what you think! We’re just good friends.
Actually, I’ve been meaning to make little surprises for you guys for years, but it’s kind of labor intensive, and expensive, and I suck at errands, and there’s a lot of reality TV between me and my grand ideas. You understand. I finally got my act together because Sandisk slotRadio offered to foot the bill for my theme-gifts project, as long as they got to pick the themes. Of course, they threw in some slotRadios too. Sweet.
They picked Father’s Day, so I made a Lazy Sunday Kit, which contains restful things. Would you like to know what’s in it? Yes:
The Aforementioned slotRadio
It’s like a walkman, but instead of CDs or tapes, you put in a little memory card that comes preloaded with music you didn’t have to download. This one comes with 1,000 Billboard songs, but you can buy other cards if you like. Also, there’s room for you to upload your own mixes if you want to hear something that’s not on the card.
A One-Year Subscription to The Week Magazine
I’ve told you about this epic magazine before on The Morning News. Here’s what I said:
The Week is a news digest for the impatient and globally curious. Say you had a genius friend who read three-dozen of the world’s best newspapers every day. Then say that friend agreed to write a summary for you featuring all the best stuff he found on every subject.
That’s The Week—excerpts from the top columns, news articles, business deals, real estate, gossip, and even TV listings. Best of all, it’s slim enough to fold in half and read during one good, long soak in the tub. You’ll emerge wrinkled, but utterly prepared for the most arduous cocktail party.
Warning! This will be shipped to whatever address the winner provides. So you’ll need to think really hard about how much your dad means to you.
Oxo No-Spill Travel Mug
A travel mug with an agreeable clicky button on the top that opens and closes the cup when you press it. You could practically throw the thing in a bag and it wouldn’t spill. Genius. Now dad can read his magazine anywhere he wants.
The Perfect Cube Silicone Ice Cube Trays
These make excellent, perfectly cubular ice cubes. I’m including these instead of a bottle of bourbon, because I technically have no idea who you are. You could be like sixteen, and Bam! You’re corrupted. Suddenly I’m a corruptor. Anyway, please use these perfect ice cubes in the tasty beverage of your choice — cocktail or otherwise. Kids, stay away from drugs.
Now, isn’t that a nice present? I think so too. I spent a lot of time agonizing at the mall today. Anyway, if you want it, or your dad does, here’s the deal. First you have to live in the continental U.S. or Canada. If you do, please leave a comment below about the ideal Father’s Day gift. Be sure to include your email address in the field provided (so I can reach you if you win) by June 12, 2009 at 12 a.m. EST. Just one comment, please. I have to delete duplicates for fairness. Random.org will decide who wins, and I’ll contact the lucky via email. I’ll also tell you who won here.
So, ready? Best Father’s Day Gift on record? Aaaand go!
Mighty Girl 
Hmmm. For my dad- a new imac and for my husband (fantastic dad to our two boys), a beach vacation. Both of these are fantasies, the reality is much cheaper and last-minute.
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This is a great idea, thank you! A beer of the month club!!
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The ideal Dad’s day gift for my husband would be a vacation to New Orleans, where we got married (bring on the Sazeracs and cafe au lait!). What will likely happen is an addition to his single malt scotch collection, with a cool bar tool from one of the funky antique stores downtown.
Thanks!
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I’m pregnant with our first kid. So it’s a cute idea to do the mothers day / fathers day thing even though we don’t really feel like parents yet. The hubbs has decided he needs an X Box. *sigh*
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Hmm…best father’s day gift? I’m not sure…I personally think the best gift for him would be to make him less risk-averse–he has all these ideas and never acts on any of them. Maybe someday right? Especially if he wins that magazine! 🙂
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One of the best things about Dad’s? It doesnt take much. The best present to date, seems to be a home-made card. I put a picture of my Dad and I (from when I was a baby) on the front. I dont think he even opened it! He just looked at that picture and cried.
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I think that the best Father’s Day gift would be to just spend time with them. Spend the day, make a nice meal, enjoy some good conversation. And these gifts would certainly top it off!
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How thoughtful of you to buy my father a present! 🙂
For my dad, the best gift would be the next in the LA Times Sunday crossword books – he LOVES crosswords!
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For my dad, the best gift would be a day with his grandchildren, where he got only fun playtime attitudes and not the attitudes I get from them. He gets a few of those now and then but not as many as he would like I’m sure. I think he’d love to take them all fishing and explain to them the importance of everything he knows about, and he knows alot.
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My dad loves getting trees as gifts.I’d love to get him a small orchard this year but, I’m not sure I can swing it.
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I think your gifts would be perfect for my husband. He says he doesn’t want anything for Father’s Day but I don’t think he means it 🙂 Our daughter is 3 so it’s hard to get her to pick something out for him. I think the best gift (other than your picks, of course) would be a day to himself without anything to do around the house. As for my dad, he’s hard to buy for but a good meal out and a good bottle of wine always makes him happy.
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I think the best gift I could give my Dad would be a trip to take together. He would love to spend more time with me.
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The perfect gift for my dad would be a vacation with our entire family, grandkids included. He is endlessly amused by them. For my husband it would be a vacation without the kids!
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My poor Dad! For the past few years, he’s been doomed to coming to see me perform (local dance show – think ‘So You Think You Can Dance’) on Father’s Day. I take him out to dinner though! For my hubby, he gets stuck with the kiddo while I’m at the aforementioned show. Terrible, I know! For him, I get him gifts that he and our daughter can do together that would be fun. This year, it’s a child seat for his bike (installed by me) and a helmet for her. They’ll spend the day cycling through some parks in town.
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The best father’s day gift my Dad ever got was when my older brother (who was living in England at the time) walked up our front walk and completely surprised my Dad (and Mom).
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2 copies of a book on a subject we are both interested in- one for each of us- so we can talk about them as we both read them
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I think my dad’s perfect gift would be an awesome car. Whenever my parents get a new car, it goes straight to my mom and her old car goes straight to my dad, even though he has a longer commute. He loves cars, though, so I think he deserves a special one.
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My dad is so hard to buy for, I can’t ever think of anything good to get him!
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My Dad has everything and is sooo hard to buy for, usually we get him a gift card and spend the day at the lake with him.
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The best gift for Father’s day – to be able to spend another day with him.
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Usually my poor dad gets a Best Buy gift card every year (we share a love of all things tech) but this year I’m thinking about a pair of wireless headphones for his iPod. I think the ideal gift for him would be a home theatre with the cool cinema seating and projector style TV with every possible channel along with a BluRay player, slingbox, and massive DVR.
That sums up my dad’s version of heaven.
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Do you really read all these? I think it sounds like an awesome gift and I can’t wait for Father’s Day!!
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Have you checked out Lee Valley? It’s a mail-order catalogue for woodworkers and gardeners which sounds way-boring, but it’s not, it’s WAY COOL. We could pretty much get my Dad anything from Lee Valley and he would be OVER THE MOON.
My husband though is a tough cookie. He has everything he wants (spoiled rotten). I think this year, I’m going to loosen up the purse strings and extend our satellite TV channels, because his honkin’ TV is his baby. (Don’t laugh, before he brought it home I had to sign papers saying that if anything happened to us as a couple, he gets custody of the TV.)
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Hmmm… for my husband, I know he’d love a BMW. But I think he’d settle for a day of no eye-rolling from our kids and a nice meal!
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This is awesome! My husband wants a chainsaw, so unless I win, that’s what he’ll get. But chainsaws scare the beejeezus out of me, and I’ll be purchasing it against my better judgement.
It’ll be easier for him to use a chainsaw to cut down trees now, though – when we first bought our house, I made him cut down a 6″ dia. tree with a bow saw by hand. Luckily, he still wanted to stay married to me!
Thanks, Maggie!
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This is an absolute genius combination. I struggle EVERY year with what to get my father for Father’s Day… I was planning on a nice bottle of imported tequila… I think it would compliment you selections nicely!
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I’ve got a BIL who says the BEST Father’s Day Gift is a day off from being a parent. Given the little hell raiser’s he’s spawned, I have to think that’s the best gift for everyone involved! LOL.
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lessons in something… for my dad, it’d be painting lessons because he’s always wanted more formal training.
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The Week….Who knew it was even out there. So, my dad is a sponge and would love this. He’s 72 this year and a little lonely as he’s lost his love of many years and something like this to read over his morning breakfast would thrill him and make him smile. He is already the smartest person I know so this is perfect. He and my brother Randy have coffee and pie or lunch often and I know Randy would love this read too and they would discuss! Pick me…I love my dad and miss him…I live too far away to visit often enough. Thank You. Stephanie
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For my dad the golfer, it’s always something golf-related. Shirts, jackets, pants, clubs, shoes, balls….. the possibilities are endless – and useful.
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Perfect for my Dad! Now I just need a bottle of good single malt scotch to go with the ice cubes…thanks for the great ideas!
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I bought my Dad a ladder a few years ago for Father’s Day. He was using this rickety old ladder to do repairs around the house. I was so proud of myself for going to Home Depot, picking out the ladder, buying it, and driving it over to his house all by myself!
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The best Father’s Day gift I bought for my husband for his first Father’s Day was a Philadelphia Eagles golf bag. It’s gawd awfully gawdy but he loves it so that is all that matters. This year he’s getting some Docker’s because Sears had a buy $50 get $50 rebate and he asked for them. So boring but he wanted it. ;o)
Thanks for the give away maybe this will make his present a little less dull this year. ;o)
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Best Father’s day gift for my Dad is having his 3 girls with him for the day. And a funky tie, in a cool color that he would never buy himself but that makes him look so cool!
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Ideal father’s day is going for a walk with the whole family and all of our dogs at the off-leash dog park.
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Great suggestions, Maggie!
My dad is tough to buy for because he doesn’t need anything! And a guy can only use so many golf balls! So this year, my husband tracked down Daddy’s most favorite beer in the whole wide world….it’s German and only distributed to ONE vendor in the US. We bought him a case for Father’s Day. It’s something he will enjoy completely and NEVER think to buy for himself! 🙂
Cheers!
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My ideal gift for my Dad on Father’s Day would be to pay him back the tuition money he gave me to put me through college. Because of him and his sacrifices he’s made to put me through school so I can reap the opportunities that come along with having an education, someday I will.
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Good job, Sandisk… I’d never heard of this slot radio thing and now I kinda want one.
I think the best present for my dad would be everyone back home, doing stuff outdoors, and miraculously not complaining about it. Food and alcohol wouldn’t go amiss either.
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For my dad, the ideal gift would be a plane ticket to Scotland so he can visit the site of his great grandparents’ farm near Inverness. But he is also notoriously lazy, so your lazy Sunday kit is a close second!
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I got my dad a shirt already and then found out he has only one measuring tape when he could use about three. I will add a measuring tape to that gift and he will love it.
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Even though my dad is a white color systems engineer on the outside, he’s an aging hippie inside, so socially conscious gifts are perfect for him. Failing to do something that alleviates poverty results in my dad muttering “goats for africans…” in a sad little voice as he opens presents. This year, my sibs and I are giving a donation to Heifer International in his name. But I think he would be happy as a clam if Africans milked their goats while he drank iced coffee, listened to his Sandisk, and read The Week.
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My mom already bought my dad a freestanding hammock so that he can be nap-ready anywhere in the yard. I don’t think I’m going to be able to top that so i figured I would just feed him bacon/eggs and beer/tomato juice and then direct him to the hammock for the aforementioned nap.
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this year my step-dad is getting a new bumper for his pick up truck. yeah, we rock like that. I have no idea what my 2 year old son is getting my husband for dad’s day, but this giveaway would definitely fit the bill. Plus, then I would get to read “The Week” too.
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The best gift I bought my dad was a travel toiletry kit. It seems so simple, but he’s the kind of guy who throws all his stuff in a large ziploc baggie and doesn’t think there’s anything strange about that. Now you know why there is no ideal gift for my dad – because he doesn’t want anything! His ideal day would be to sit in front of his computer listening to classical music.
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Every fathers day that goes by is more valuable to me as time rolls on and we both age another year. Ideal day would be a motorcycle tour of western AR. Hmmm, why not?
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Ooh, what a great goody collection! Of all the various things we got my dad over the years, I think his favorite has been the sunrise fishing trip my Sister and I went on with him when we were teenagers. He still jokes about how I wouldn’t put the worm on the hook, so when I caught the biggest fish “technically HE caught it, since it was his baid.”
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The best Father’s Day gift I ever heard of was when a college friend told me about the year that she and her brother discovered that their Dad’s favorite gift was a six-pack of PBR and a can of mixed nuts. After that, they were set for every Father’s Day and birthday.
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My father requested a manure fork, and I’m going to oblige him. It’s different than a pitchfork or rake, and is perfect for (1) removing horsecrap from an otherwise clean stall (2) shoveling manure from wheelbarrow to pile, pile to truck, truck to garden, etc (3) picking up whatever dead animal the cat left on the doorstep. That’s one thing we appreciate about my dad: he’s not afraid of doing the gross jobs, and sometimes even enjoys them.
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Best for my dad: tickets to the US Open golf championship for him and his favorite golf partner, my husband. The best part is, he’s getting that this year. I hope they both enjoy the trip to NY.
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Well, both my dad and FIL are out of the picture for various reasons, but my husband was pretty darn glad for the Golds Gym for Wii gift I gave him 2 months early. Yeah, sounds mean, but he was getting bored of just Wii Fit and this said, “you rock and get up early and exercise and I don’t” without having to do much…
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