Dad’s big day is coming up! This year, don’t bother with another tie or “#1 Dad” coffee mug. Here are some different ideas:
- Here’s one idea that costs nothing, doesn’t take up space on a shelf or in a closet, and might be the best gift you’ve ever given him. Take time out to write a letter to your father or father figure, letting him know how important he is to you, some specific things he’s done that have shaped and encouraged you, and ways that he has been a role model for you. You’ll make his day.
- Forget breakfast in bed. Kids, make his lunch for a week instead! Pack a special lunch for work with some of his favorite snacks. Or you could wash his car or promise to mow the lawn or rake or shovel snow cheerfully, without complaint. Just make sure you remember the promise when the time comes!
- How about some ear candy? If Dad likes kicked-back, bluesy music, he might enjoy Amos Lee’s album Mission Bell (Blue Note). Paul Simon’s latest, So Beautiful or So What (Hear Music) is another option, and Kirk Franklin’s Hello Fear (Gospo Centric) is a fun gospel offering. For the classical music lover, Brahms: Works For Cello and Piano (Telarc) by Zuill Bailey and Awadagin Pratt might be just the thing.
- And don’t forget Dad’s bookshelf. History buffs will devour the World War II story Unbroken (Random House) by Laura Hillenbrand or The Greater Journey by David McCullough (Simon & Schuster) about 19th century Americans in Paris and their effect on history. West of Here by Jonathan Evison (Algonquin) is an epic novel about the Pacific Northwest. And the dad-cum-theologian will bury himself in reading selections from people such as St. Augustine, Julian of Norwich, Jonathan Edwards, and many others in James Stuart Bell’s compilation From the Library of A.W. Tozer.(Bethany House).