Father’s Day is Coming: Did you Get Him His Cufflinks?

With Father’s Day around the corner (even though there’s still Mother’s Day before that), I am back to the regular dilemma – what gift I should get him. There are a few challenges that I’m facing every year around birthday/Xmas/Father’s Day time. Challenge #1: he already has everything. And to be more exact he has MORE than enough of everything a modern man should have. Well, maybe except the new BMW he is dreaming about, which I am not gonna get him. Challenge #2: he is very picky. Meaning everything I got him before did not satisfy his taste for one reason or another and ended up in the far corner of his least-visited dresser draw. Challenge #3: he loves shopping. I touched upon his 'shopaholics’ disorder' in my previous post. So even if he does need something, for me to go and get it for him is the same as taking away his most cherished pleasure of buying it himself. 

Here are some ways I go about these challenges. Solution #1: I buy him things he wants but for some reason doesn’t get or postpones getting. For example he’s been wanting to hang a few birdhouses in our backyard forever but could not find them at the local stores. I ended up ordering them online as a gift for him – made him real happy by the way! Solution #2: I buy him things he doesn’t have and doesn’t use but wouldn’t mind having just in case. Cufflinks would be a perfect example – even though he doesn’t wear them, he does have a couple of dress shirts that require cufflinks. This is actually something I am leaning towards this year, and since I very conveniently work next to Macy's, I might as well get men’s cufflinks there during my lunch break (they have some cool ones, I’ve checked before). Solution #3: personalized ego-boosting products. It must have been expert psychologists, who came up with the whole idea of putting “Best Dad Ever” + a photo on a coffee mug. No matter how cliché these things are, they work!!! And what’s more, they never get shoved to some dark web-covered corner of a kitchen cabinet. So cufflinks or a #1 Dad mug? Or ... more birdhouses?