SOCK TACTICS!
Father’s Day presents the usual dilemmas for Kate
Father’s Day seems to have morphed into something a tad more sophisticated these days. I remember when it was all socks and undies, but these days the market for men almost rivals what’s available for women. We’re now tantalised with glossy imagery of retro radios, digital photo frames, designer threads and facials.
The day my hubby rocks up for a facial will be the day hell freezes over. He’s actually one of your more metrosexual men, but a facial is a bridge too far, even for him. And that’s before I get to my dad. He’s of a generation that would no sooner darken the door of a beauty salon than join a cheerleading squad. I’m not being gender-biased here – I’m just saying some men are not into that sort of thing.
So facials and man-bags are off the list for both my husband and my dad. Which leaves us with digital photo frames (both are technophobes, so that’s out) or designer threads. Luckily, both Dad and hubby are into clothes – well, I mean they both wear them. Which is probably why most years my poor dad has ended up with another T-shirt to add to his Father’s Day collection.
When we were kids (pre being able to afford T-shirts), my brother, sister and I used to ask him each year what we could get him for Father’s Day. He’d reply, “Nothing.” Of course as small kids not believing it to be possible that on a day devoted to you, you could possibly want for nothing, we’d continue to badger. Eventually, he would succumb and say, “Just get me some socks or undies then.”
“Really?” we’d say. “Isn’t that boring?”
“No,” he’d reply. “I can always use new socks.”
So for years he graciously unwrapped yet another pair of black socks. It wasn’t until later in life we found out the truth. “Whatever you do,” he whispered one day to us in a moment of brutal honesty, “don’t buy me any more blimmin’ socks or undies.”
“Don’t you like them?!” we exclaimed, shocked.
“I just didn’t want you spending too much money on me and you wouldn’t stop pestering me about gifts, so I tried to suggest the lowest value item I could think of.”
And that’s my dad to a tee. Even on his own day he was thinking about us. When I think about it all we did really was graduate from socks to T-shirts.
My husband is very similar to my father. Each year he begs us to not get him anything.
“Just a homemade card is plenty!” he will opine. So he gets a lot of homemade cards ... which he truly does love.
But even though the marketers set aside only one day a year to celebrate dads with fancy cards and sparkly gifts, I want to say to my awesome dad and my awesome husband, who’s an inspiring father and stepdad, we love and appreciate you all year round.