For so many of us, 2020 is the year we will remember as NOT being able to celebrate our moms and dads as we normally would – visiting with the grandkids, having a big family dinner, etc. (thanks coronavirus) but for 2021, things are going to be back to normal somewhat. We’re here to help you kick off a great Father’s Day weekend by celebrating the men in our lives we call dad.
For the Grillmaster Dad
Our friends at Gobble have put together a delicious menu of seasonal grill kits, classic sides, and a host of sweet treats to make Father’s Day cookouts a snap. Celebrate your dads by spending more time with them and less time in the kitchen. Start by grabbing 6 meals over at Gobble!
For the Blinged Out Dad
If your dad wears jewelry, he is going to love these gifts brought to you by . Dads deserve the very best this Father’s Day. Show every dad in your life how much he is loved with a gift from the Isabelle Grace men’s accessory collection. Some of the below designs can be personalized with his children’s initials, names, and birth dates, making them truly special and one of a kind. Others offer a special message just for dad! They are all individually crafted by hand by local artisans, in the USA using recycled, sustainable metals whenever possible. These one-of-a-kind pieces are a great way to honor dad and fatherhood in a truly personal way. Be sure to click through the link to see cuffs, dog tags, necklaces, keychains, and more!
For the “I’d Rather Eat Seafood” Dad
Love seafood? I know we do … but not the kind you buy in the store or even at some local ‘fresh’ seafood places that sell farm-raised seafood. Sitka Salmon Shares is a community-supported, boat-to-doorstep seafood company based out of (where else?) Sitka, Alaska, whose fishermen are also owners in the company. Taste the difference that Sitka offers its customers with wild-caught, sustainable, responsibly sourced seafood. Check out our review of their service and products here.
For the Coffee-Loving Dad
Being a dad is hard when you are toting around your little ones. Wouldn’t it be great if your coffee cup actually had a handle on it, so you could also hold the car keys, the pacifier, the this-will-keep-them-distracted toy while juggling your little one in the other hand? We got you dad. Check out this There Ain’t No Hood Like Fatherhood Go-Cuff for your Starbucks order. (Psst – there are a ton of other designs you can check out as well, maybe grab one for your Baby Momma while you shop)
For the Outdoorsy Dad
You don’t need to be stuck at home with a little one, Dad. Take your little one with you and head out to the park or the jungle wilds of downtown with this Explorer Diaper Bag from KeaBabies. We ♥ KeaBabies products. Stylish, specially designed with functionality and style in mind, this diaper bag isn’t your ordinary diaper bag. Thoughtfully designed with multiple pockets and compartments, it also includes a large diaper changing mat with a waterproof surface for you to clean it with sanitizer after each use if needed. As of this publication, you can purchase on Amazon for almost half-price! Now that really is an awesome Father’s Day gift!
For the Head in the Stars Dad
With Mapiful, you can bring his story to life with map art of the place closest to his heart. You can design a visualisation of the stars with his child’s birth sky that welcomed his bundle of joy into the world on their first night. Perhaps his sporting hero or team will honor a place on his wall with unique text-art pieces.
Feel even better about the gifts you’ll give as they are produced locally to you, printed on high-quality, FSC-certified paper, and Mapiful uses a reduced carbon shipping system with all of their materials recyclable.
This Father’s Day, take the opportunity to acknowledge the chapters of the life story of the person who embodies fatherhood to you with a custom Mapiful wall piece. Create your Father’s Day Gifts today.
For the Crafty Dad (and giveaway)
Father’s Day is right around the corner & we have a fun game for Dad and the kids to play! 🎁 THE PRIZE: Paint Your Own Squishies Kits! 🎨 3 winners will be chosen at random. Here’s how it works:
👔 Step 1: Make sure you’re following us on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/doodlehogcrafts/)
👔 Step 2: Have your kids ask Dad (or father figure) the questions on the slide below. They can ask all the questions, some of the questions, and even their own questions!
👔 Step 3: Record a video of your kids asking the questions to get Dad’s surprise reaction 🤫
👔 Step 4: Tag us and use the hashtag #PaulTheOctopus for a chance to be entered in our Father’s Day giveaway. All videos should be shared on Instagram and Tik Tok. Only videos using the hashtag will qualify.
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. US residents only. The giveaway will close at 10 a.m. CST 6/19. Winners will be announced on 6/20. Good luck & start recording!
For the Sentimental Dad
For the dad who is as sentimental as I am, nothing would put a smile on his face like a Mpix Collagewall Display of his family. You can choose arrangements from just 3 photos up to 47 photos of his favorite people. I had the opportunity to work with Mpix to get some beautiful shots of my two granddaughters, Amelia and Aubree. To say I’m extremely satisfied with the products is a gross understatement. I will never use anyone else. They have a customer for life here.
I absolutely cannot wait to order more photos to add to my granddaughter’s wall, as I call it. I have plenty of space and tons of various arrangements I can create with their versatile selection and sizes. I also ordered a coffee cup with the girls’ images on it – absolutely beautiful and dishwasher safe!
For the Health-Conscious Dad
Keep your dad healthy and strong with vitafusion Men’s multivitamin, a gummy formulated to address the health needs of men. These delicious gummies provide immune support*, muscle support*, energy metabolism support*, and are an excellent source of Vitamins A, C, & D.
Got a stressed dad? Is he having trouble focusing? Stop getting on his last nerve and then get him some vitafusion Brain Food gummy vitamins, which contain a unique combination of ingredients including Ashwagandha, Phosphatidylserine, and B-vitamins (B-12 and B-6) – and come in a delicious blueberry flavor. (*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.)
For the Neat Freak Dad
Times have changed, and the female of the household isn’t the only one doing laundry. If you have a dad that loves doing laundry, make his life easier with a gift of ARM & HAMMER Odor Blasters, Fresh Burst detergent. This value-packed detergent is designed for the entire family, tough on stains but gentle on skin. It attacks those tough odors at their core and is specially formulated for body odor, sweat, and musty-towel odors. (Yes, we mean you with the towels from the beach trip a week ago still sitting in the trunk of your car.)
For the Tatted Dad
He spent all that money to get the tattoos he loves, so don’t let them become damaged this summer. Mad Rabbit Tattoo is a tattoo aftercare company offering natural, non-toxic, and paraben-free tattoo aftercare products. Their recently launched Mad Rabbit Defend – Tattoo Protection is perfect to bring along on those sunny days with an SPF 30 protection to restore already sun-damaged skin and protects inked skin without causing harm to the tattoo. Don’t miss out on their Father’s Day sale on all products – simply use code FD25 when you checkout.
A Story From a Dad
I never really looked at the father’s story (being a mom and all) but now that my own sons are fathers, I see things through their eyes. Having a granddaughter with a rare chromosome deletion disorder, and seeing how my son and her mother have weathered that storm since the day she was born, has given me a fresh insight into the man that I raised, and the beautiful soul that she is thanks to the love and support of her parents. So in honor of fathers everywhere, I want to share a very touching story with you by Steven Gardner, M.D. whose son was born with severe cerebral palsy.
Fatherhood: When Hearts Have No Walls
A father’s love for his child is as old as the ages, yet as unique as each individual father and child. I was gifted with a beautiful son, Graham, who had severe cerebral palsy. Graham was nonverbal, but his eyes were alert and sparkled with understanding. His mother and I intuitively sensed that he could understand everything we said and we treated him accordingly. We loved Graham unconditionally just the way he was. The way we saw it, Graham was perfect.
Throughout his 22 years, his cerebral palsy forced Graham to rely on other people, sometimes complete strangers, for absolutely everything. He accepted that assistance graciously and cheerfully. We watched the way that people gravitated toward helping Graham and being in his presence.
People with disabilities deserve the same opportunities to learn and seek their potential as everyone else. Thanks to dedicated, can-do, and heroic caregivers, as well as ingenious equipment adaptations, Graham lived a directed and purposeful life.
As a father-son team, we participated in the Pan-Mass Challenge. On what turned out to be a perfect summer day, we rode nearly 40 miles together on a special tandem bike. When I felt depleted on some of the long uphill climbs, I found strength in the words of Dick Hoyt, the father who has pushed his disabled son Rick in a racing wheelchair in scores of marathons: “Rick is the real athlete. I am only lending him some muscle power.”
Graham and I were transformed by our journey — both the PMC bike ride itself and our larger odyssey through life dealing with a profound disability. Graham and I had come very close to mastering a skill that can be elusive for many families — a skill that’s very simple, yet very powerful: being together.
Graham had the decency, even a nobility that was inspirational to those who knew him. His schoolmates frequently said that watching Graham made them want to try harder, to be better.
People wondered how we coped with Graham’s disability — constantly lifting him, feeding him, bathing him, and changing his “briefs.” It was difficult, and many people assumed that it must be a burden that was hard to bear. But, honestly, caring for Graham never felt like a burden. Loving someone that much seemed to give us strength. And when we did feel depleted, we looked to Graham for guidance and, in his unique way, he helped us find reserves of physical and spiritual energy. He accepted his reality, lived in the present moment, reveled in relationships, and released radiance all around him. Graham personified joy and he lived love.
As Graham’s father, I was filled with happiness. He was so gentle, so resilient — so good. He was a wondrous companion and, of all the men on the earth, he needed me. And I needed him just as much, or, perhaps, a little more.
I was unprepared to lose Graham when, shortly after his 22nd birthday, he experienced a grand mal seizure that ended his life. I knew that I’d never feel love so powerful again. I knew that the world would never be as wonderful as it was with Graham in it. I honestly wasn’t sure how to go on.
At his memorial service, with an overflow crowd of friends, neighbors, and people I didn’t even recognize, I wondered how a boy who’d never spoken could pack the church with 750 souls. I soon saw the ripple effect of Graham’s life.
Word spread to us of a woman, Helen, who had been so moved by Graham’s obituary in the Boston Globe that she gave photocopies of it to her friends. She later ran into one of those friends who had, in turn, shared the obituary with his priest at a Catholic parish outside Boston. That priest, Father Joseph D’Onofrio, had then delivered a homily about Graham during a Sunday mass, despite never having met him. I decided to phone Father Joe to ask him what it was about Graham’s story that inspired a sermon. He said that the obituary had brought him to tears and that he was moved by “Graham’s ability to inspire people without saying anything in words.”
Graham’s life told a story of how to live regardless of the hand you are dealt — something it took me many more years to figure out. Graham opened my heart to boundless love, and I can only feel honored that I was able to share in the short but wondrous life of such an exceptional human being.
Dr. Steven Gardner is an internist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and past Medical Director of the Massachusetts Special Olympics. He is a past winner of the Harvard Medical School Humanism in Medicine Award. He is a prominent photographer whose images focus on the resilience of people facing adversity and the compassion of caregivers. His work has been exhibited in Boston and Martha’s Vineyard, where he is a volunteer physician at Camp Jabberwocky, the location and inspiration for many of the stories in his book, Jabberwocky: Lessons of Love from a Boy Who Never Spoke (Made for Success Publishing, April 27, 2021). To learn more, visit Jabberwockybook.com.
