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Friendly PSA: Father’s Day is June 16 this year — time to get thee to Open Table and book a reservation, as well as ponder what from Amazon 2-day shipping might say “I love you and totally get you!” (Or perhaps that’s just me?) I don’t think we’ve had a Father’s Day thread on this site before, so let’s discuss, for those of you who celebrate —
- How does your family celebrate Father’s Day? How many dads in your family are you celebrating?
- What are you ladies getting your guys for Father’s Day?
Fun story: Both my husband and my father are forever ordering burgers at restaurants, even when the restaurant is known for other things. So a few years ago when we were in town at the same time, I found a great restaurant that was known for hamburgers and made reservations for us all… and both of them ordered something else entirely. (You can lead a horse to water…)
I have a few silly things up my sleeve for my father for this Father’s Day, but I’m still in love with the present I got my mom for Mother’s Day, and it would make a great present for dads too, so I’ll wax poetic about it here: the NixPlay Seed is such an amazing digital photo frame! Unlike other digital photo frames we have, it orients the pictures properly for you (no more upside-down selfies or sideways pictures), and it is crazy easy to send new photos to the frame. (You can set it up to just be a setting on your iPhone when you push the arrow button.) Because I make poor time-management decisions involving family photos, I have of course started creating virtual albums that will only be used a few days of the year — to show, for example, all of our wedding album pictures and happy married pictures for a few days around our wedding anniversary; cute pictures of each child (from a wide range of years) to show for a few days around their birthdays, and so forth — but the kicker is that it’s really super duper easy to direct the frame to show one album or another. We have one frame, and I got my mom and mother-in-law one as well — my mom is letting me manage hers, which means I can send photos to it super easily. I highly recommend them!
Stock photo via Stencil.
Anonymous says
This is the first weekend after school lets out, and we’ve long planned to take my son to spend the first week of summer vacation with my mom. My gift to my husband was to give him the no-strings-attached option of whether to come with us for the weekend, or stay home and relax while I make the 6 hour trip with 3 kids & return with 2. He’s choosing to stay home.
Otherwise, kids have little gifts and cards,I have a card, and we’ll celebrate on a different day. I also send a card and call my own dad and grampa. I’m not close with my FIL, but I’ll text him a quick happy father’s day message. DH is in charge of actual gifts, and who knows if he has anything planned from him or the kids.
Cb says
Brunch and family time. My husband and son are brio obsessed so I’m going to buy them some new additions to their collections. Maybe the Brio metro?
Leatty says
I’m giving DH the weekend free from childcare duties. He’ll still play with our 2 YO, but he won’t be obligated to do all of the normal childcare responsibilities. He gave me the same thing for Mother’s Day and it was absolutely perfect. He’ll also be playing golf with a friend, getting a massage, and a receiving a few small things.
CPA Lady says
I got DH two presents — a set of matching Darth Vader/Princess Leia socks for him and kiddo and a meat thermometer. I’m also going to take him to a local museum that is related to one of his hobbies that we haven’t had a chance to check out yet. Overall pretty low key.
Boston Legal Eagle says
Husband is seeing the Avengers (finally) solo while I and my parents watch the kids. I’ve also promised him that I would wake up early that Sunday so that he can sleep in (i.e. past the normal 5:30am wake-up from baby and 3 year old). He almost always lets me sleep in on the weekends so I owe him!
Basically our gifts to each other for these “holidays” are childcare-free days to relax. The book I’m reading on motherhood noted that Mother’s Day historically started out as a day of protest against all the unpaid labor that moms were doing, so I’d say we’re right on target.
AnotherAnon says
Not to start a huge debate but those of you that are giving your DH a kid-free weekend: did he give you one for Mother’s day?
Spirograph says
Yes, that’s how we celebrate these holidays. On Mother’s day, DH wakes up early with the kids, makes + cleans up meals, and handles naptime and bedtime routines. On Father’s day, I do. The celebrated parent gets to sleep in, and can choose how he/she wants to spend time. Usually we end up with a lazy day at home. This year, I spent a lot of Mother’s day lounging outside reading a book.
Leatty says
Absolutely. I did absolutely zero childcare the entire Mother’s Day weekend. It was the same way for my birthday.
Anon says
We don’t do the whole day kid-free but we each take a nice chunk of time to ourselves. I went to the spa for roughly 3 hours on Mother’s Day. I’m not sure what DH is going to do with his free time but he’s earned it!
Anonymous says
Same. The non-celebratory parent wakes up with the kids and figures out breakfast (whether it be making it or running out for donuts, etc.). That parent also gets a good chunk of time to themselves (I went to a class at the gym and went shopping). But we parent pretty jointly, so that parent is still “on duty” and helps with bedtime, etc.
anne-on says
Ditto. I ‘slept in’ till it was time to get up for my 9am gym class, worked out, showered, had lunch with my family, and then napped. It was delightful! We then had the afternoon/dinner together as a family.
My husband will do something similar for Father’s day. My son also loooooves that it is basically the only time he goes to eat at the local diner and can have chocolate chip pancakes with alll the syrup.
Anonymous says
We don’t do kid-free time for either Father’s Day or Mother’s Day. My husband wants family time, so that’s what he gets and what I get too.
Pogo says
We do “kid-free days” more than just on the holidays (usually when one of us indulges in an all-day hobby activity or visiting friends). In practice I don’t understand how you can be off duty and still be at home – the kid still sees you. So for Mother’s day I went to the gym, the spa and shopping. I did something similar after Christmas because DH had gotten me all these gift certificates – so I spent a day out of the house using them.
DH goes on day-long sports adventures with friends (golf, skiing, mountain biking, etc) frequently enough that I don’t think he feels the need to ask for a special day. We also both travel for work and have work obligations in the evening enough that we each often have days where the other person does 95% of the parenting.
Anon says
I’m giving my husband his annual Father’s Day gift – a custom tervis tumbler with pics of the kids. He also wants an electric griddle. Sharing here bc I love that I can give him the same fun (useful) thing every year and that it’s reasonavly easy to do!
Anon says
Just saying that the waffle plates for the cuisinart griddler have increased our waffle consumption by 300 percent. Highly recommend.
Ms B says
+1. And the Griddler has upped our panini conumption equally. Proscuitto + fontina + roasted and chilled fennel + herb aioli = sandwich night.
Quail says
+1 love my griddler for quesadillas/pressed sandwiches and the waffle plates for WAFFLES!!!
But I also love my black and decker large griddle for pancakes (the Griddler’s open “griddle” function is less even than a regular griddle). We make a lot of pancakes in our house. I’m big on weekend breakfasts.
Jenny D says
I wish my DH was as easy to get gifts for as yours! I hope you’re aware how lucky you are, at least when it comes to gift giving :)
SC says
I will let DH sleep in, probably by getting Kiddo out of the house early. My in-laws have invited all the “kids” and grandkids over to swim in the afternoon, so we’ll go there assuming everything works out.
I bought DH a replacement Yeti cup a few weeks ago. He got the Amazon notice early (I tried to disable the notification, per advice here, but it didn’t work), so I just gave it to him at the same time he received a late birthday present and an on-time anniversary gift, with a card that said “Happy Everything!”
Quail says
Spouse’s birthday was last week so I had to think of two gifts – yikes!
We will have guests in from out of town so not sure we will do anything Father’s Day related during the day. We’ll probably do gifts Sunday night (beard grooming set and cooperative game). I didn’t get a Mother’s Day celebration this year as I was traveling for work, so I figure that’s fair.
Mary says
He can have the exact same thing I got for Mother’s Day. He can sleep in no later than 10, and then he has to take the kids out on his own all day while I stay home pretending that I’m busy with work stuff. At some point during the day, I’ll mumble “Happy Father’s Day.”
Oh, wait, that would start a fight, wouldn’t it? (But seriously, the kids are old enough that this year, they started asking, “It was your birthday yesterday? But we didn’t do anything.”