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I really want to make this a great one for my husband and my father. My husband is, in my eyes, an exceptional man and it would be fun to honor him with something different or new.
What have you done in Father's Day past?
What recipes do you drag out for special occasions and can you share?
What have been some of your favorite gifts that you have given for Father's Day?
What are your plans for this year?
I hope this thread is helpful to more than just myself. I don't want to be a thread hog!
Fly, maybe you should write a beautiful tribute to your husband.
I'm giving my dad a pair of mtb shorts and a high vis shirt.
What would be special just for your particular guys? It might not be the same thing as would be special for my DH. Father's Day here isn't in June, but for my DH what would be really special is if the "kids" (both grown now, but you know what I mean -- the two who gave him the title "Father") were both to visit and go for a hike in the mountains with him. From me, maybe a travel voucher for somewhere with trains to ride and mountains to climb. Or a really great new, controversial, ground-breaking history book, maybe about some aspect of WWII, or China.
What have you done in Father's Day past? A couple years ago my husbadn, brother and I took my father to breakfast and to see the movie Cars. He isn't one to go to the movies so it was a treat.
What recipes do you drag out for special occasions and can you share? Sugar cookies. Of course they aren't really a summer thing. I use Betty Crocker mixed (shhhh- I do them from scratch sometimes) and add a teaspoon Nutmeg. Then ice with powdered sugar frosting. My family loves them and gets really excited when I make a batch for them.
What have been some of your favorite gifts that you have given for Father's Day? I am sure we have done some good ones but dang I can't think of any!
What are your plans for this year?My dad will be at a motorcycle rally, so nothing. I think he is getting a crank LED flashlight though. They are wicked cool and he always needs flashlights when he takes out his travel trailer. As a joke I am going to buy him a stick on mo-hawk for his motocycle helmet!
For my BF's daughter's birthday recently I ordered a mug for her decorated with five photos of her with her dad. It was a hit, both with her and the BF.
So for Father's Day, I'm choosing five other photos of them and having a similar mug made for him. That way they'll have 'matching' father-daughter mugs, but with 10 different pictures..........
You can get photo-personalized mugs, jigsaw puzzles, and plenty of other items at a lot of places, but I found mine at www.personalizationmall.com. :)
Last year BF, BF's daughter and I did a day trip to Lynchburg, Virginia to bike the pretty trail system in the middle of the city. Packed a picnic lunch. Great fun......
I one time put a list together of all the reasons I was glad to have my dad as my dad. One reason for every year we had been a father/daughter team. He started to read it and quietly tucked it away, to be read later in private. I'm not sure what he did with the list after his private reading but I hope he knew at that point in time how much I loved and respected him. Just for the record I still have a tremendous amount of love and respect for him.
This year - he wants money for his future tool purchases. I won't see him on Father's Day but will see him a few days later when I journey down their way to pick my mom up for our annual "girls vacation."
I might go out to the cemetery where my dad is.
We might go to the inlaws. My father-in-law and I share a birthday about a week before father's day, so we'll do a combination celebration one Sunday in June.
I'm going to make my dad
http://www.cubeecraft.com/
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He loves Ghostbusters. Plus he's impossible to shop for, but I think he'll laugh at this.
The photographer that we used for our wedding and girls baby photos put together a father's day special. We did a portrait session on Sunday...just his three girls! Yes I did get all make-up'd up for it and they turned out really nice.
So he will get a bi-fold frame for his office, one of the two girls and then one of the three of us and some new sunglasses that he desperately needs.
We did it last year and he loved it. I am sure we will do a picnic or something special on the day.
Me, too.Quote:
Originally Posted by kat_h
If y'all like your dads, cherish them while you have them. Once they kick the bucket, there's not much you can do.
Father's Day....
Always rough. My Mom still mourns the death of my natural father, died when I was 3 days old, and now despises the man she married when I was 2 (they're now divorced).
StepDad is the only Dad I know, and I love him dearly. But he isn't quite sane and I don't trust him as far as I can throw him. I think I love the memory of him, and don't know how to deal with the man he is now.
Sorry to drag y'all into my local episode of a soap opera.
Last few years, for me, it's just been a phone call, to wish him well. He and Mom live 4,300 kms. away where rest of my siblings and their families live in Canada.
In the past when I lived in same city as they, we might have a dinner altogether some years, not every year. Usually huge, happy and rambuctious gathering.
and my father who is 79, does not have any respiratory nor any heart problems...yet. He actually tends to have low blood pressure.
He doesn't exercise ...just walks 15 min. or 1/2 hr.
He is a small boned guy ..which is probably where I got my bones structure. Taught himself to speak and write English while being breadwinner for 6 children. My mom always housewife.
He was a restaurant cook.
Yes, he is a model, working class immigrant father. He is highly respected among relatives, abit of a humble, soft-spoken pater familias. He sponsored several cousins individually, to immigrate to Canada.
A mediator, translator for his wife/my mother and their outspoken Canadian-born children.
He is hard act to beat. My mother is very lucky and she knows it ..she was a picture bride. She met her husband-to-be for the first time when she got off the plane from China in 1957.
If I ever dare think a cycling journey is tough, HIS journey was tougher than I could ever possibly dream.
It sounds quirky but I believe we're going to go where my father grew up. My father is difficult to shop for and he doesn't really want things. My father isn't especially emotional either. My father was very sick a couple of years ago and he really started thinking about where he grew up, which is across the country. We met someone FROM his hometown while we were in Boston when he was recovering from his illness and she sent him things that he could never find on the West Coast. (She was SO wonderful to do this for two strangers!)
While my parents have flight benefits and can travel at very very very low cost (and they can afford it anyway), my father still has a few health problems and they aren't inclined to travel. DH and I are going to Boston next week and while we are there, we are going to rent a car to go to my father's home town. We had hoped to do it on Fathers Day itself but we'll be meeting a friend (the one who sent him the things from his home town) on that day so we'll go on Saturday instead. I hope to take pictures of things he might remember and maybe I'll find something from "back in the day". If I can convince my mother to consider espionage, I'd love to find out where he used to live (the specific house) and other small details :D
It's a small thing but both DH and I would like to see his heritage and he is always so interested in hearing about whenever we go back east.
Phone the town librarian there and see if s/he can look that up in an old phone book for you.Quote:
Originally Posted by teigyr
That's a very cool trip.
Very cool.Quote:
Originally Posted by kat_h
Kind of an interesting story - my parents and I think DuckonWheels was on this trip went to Russia where our mutual Dad was born. I'm told they managed to find the street my grandparents (that's UK Eliphants Great Great Grands) lived. It just happened that an artist was painting a landscape of the church on that street. So they asked him to finish it for them, might have had to come back. It now it hangs in my Moms office/spare room.
Here's to all the great Dads out there.
((((to all those who miss theirs)))
Oh Trek, a painting is a wonderful idea!
My mother grew up in "upscale" places and thinks where my dad is from is a dive. I think it might be a dive but still...it's HIS dive. There are paintings in the house where my mom went to boarding school and where she went to college but there is nothing for my father. Part of me thinks it would be wonderful to allow him a contribution to the decor :D
Re the phone book, is a good idea but I don't even know if they had a phone. I know they didn't have hot water and this was in the 40's/early 50's.
Another idea I have is to go to a restaurant that was open back when my dad was around. There has to be at least one. I could steal a menu or at the very least buy a shirt.
I am really enjoying reading everyone's plans and memories. I am lucky because when my father got sick and the prognosis was bad, he ended up getting better. It was a lesson for all of us and I am so happy that it enabled us to not end up with regrets. I still don't go down to see them as much as I should though...have GOT to work on that.
teigyr, those are all good ideas. :) Is there an artist in the house?
One year for his birthday I made a small multimedia collage about letter sized of events that happened the year Dad was born.
My dad loved chocolate pie, so every year for his birthday and for Father's Day I would make him one from scratch (including a homemade crust). Years ago, I used homemade whipped cream as the topping, but in later years I switched it to meringue to make it somewhat healthier. :p
I have enjoyed reading everyone's ideas and plans. I am sorry for those of you who have fathers that have passed away or don't have great pasts with them. I am blessed to have a great dad and thankful for that blessing.
My mom and dad will be out of town for about 10 days and so I have more time to scheme.
As for my husband, I think we will sneak him away and have some fun, maybe go fishing and on a picnic. It is 35 degrees here today - but the weather is supposed to be 70 on Saturday.
A gift that meant a lot to my Dad was one of those nicely bound "your story" books that ask questions so that you can learn about the family member. Basically, I was saying, I want to get to know you "the person"... your dreams, highs, lows... etc.