The 2023 Father’s Day Gift Guide
Father’s Day here in the US is coming up in about 3 weeks (June 18) and I thought I’d throw together a list of gift ideas for the occasion. I used to do December holiday gift guides and really enjoyed the process, so this is me dipping my toe back into the gift guide water after a three-year absence.
Note: if you’re shopping for a fishing/hunting/golfing dad, this list might not be that useful. Read on if your dad is a tech/design/culture dork like me — this is all stuff I wouldn’t mind getting or already own myself.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for Nintendo Switch. This game has gotten such good reviews that the only thing holding me back from getting it is the knowledge that I have other things in my life that I cannot completely neglect for the next three weeks.
Ernest Wright Turton Kitchen Scissors. I’ve featured products from this English scissor company for years — the first time was almost 9 years ago. These suckers aren’t cheap and they’re backordered (so won’t arrive in time for Father’s Day), but they’re handmade and a pleasure to cut with. You could also try the Kutrite (pictured above), although that one is so backordered that there’s now a ticketed reservation system in place.
Apple AirPods Pro (2nd Generation). Great noise-cancelling earbuds that are a true step up from the 1st gen ones. And somehow, Amazon is selling them for 20% less than what you would pay at the Apple Store. 🤷♂️👍
Tidbyt. This is a simple retro-style display device that can show you the time, weather, news, sports scores, etc. and fits on your bedside table or kitchen counter. You can even make your own apps for it. Tidbyt is connected to the internet to get data, but there’s no speaker, AI, or microphone, so you don’t have to worry about it eavesdropping on you or organizing your appliances into open rebellion.
Darn Tough Hiking Socks. These are made right here in Vermont and they are great socks — I have several pair for hiking and skiing. Check out their website for many more options.
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder by David Grann. This is a total dad book and a damn good read to boot. Other dad books: The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad.
Ember Travel Mug 2. I can’t tell if this is idiotic or genius, so I’ll let you decide: a travel mug with a programmable temperature feature, a pairable app, and if you lose it, you can locate it with Apple’s Find My feature. For the right person, I bet this is the perfect gift.
Xi’an Famous Foods Hand-Pulled Noodles Meal Kits. When I learned that one of my favorite places to eat in NYC shipped meal kits around the country, I was excited but also a little wary. Would the food taste like it does in the restaurant? Thankfully the answer is a resounding yes…my family and everyone I’ve ever recommended this to loves it. My personal favorite is the Mt. Qi Pork Hand-Ripped Noodles.
Vintage Baseball Cards. If your dad watched baseball or collected baseball cards as a kid, a cool thing to get them is a little nostalgia bomb in the form of some unopened packs of cards from whenever they were 8-16 years old (give or take). For me, that was the mid-to-late 80s. They aren’t that expensive and will be worth every penny to see the look on their face when they open them and attempt to chew the extremely stale gum within.
Ice.Made.Clear. When making cocktails at home, I’m a fan of the big ice cube. This ice maker ups the game in a major way: big cubes that are perfectly clear like you get at the fancy cocktail bar where the staff refer to themselves as mixologists. If you don’t want to splurge on this one, try this cheaper one.
Ooni Fyra 12 Wood Pellet Pizza Oven. Everyone I know that has an Ooni pizza oven uses it to churn out restaurant-quality pies and loves it. This model is portable, uses hardwood pellets, and can cook a pizza in just 60 seconds at 950°F.
Moyu RS3M 2021 MagLev 3x3 Magnetic Speed Cube. A maglev Rubik’s Cube? Yeah, this 3x3 cube has strong magnets in it to cut down on friction and noise while you’re solving. This is perhaps overkill but for $13, why not? Besides, it might inspire them to bring that solving time down from 10 minutes…
Hokusai – The Great Wave Lego Set. The Lego version of the Hokusai’s iconic woodblock print in one of several kits by the company geared towards adults. Here are some others to choose from: a bonsai tree, the Apollo 11 Lunar Lander, the Nintendo Entertainment System, a typewriter, and Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe.
Ambient Weather WS-1965 WiFi Weather Station. Just set up this personal weather station somewhere outside your house and you can measure the very local weather conditions, including temperature, barometric pressure, precipitation, humidity, wind speed & direction, and more. It connects to the internet so you can do some cool things with your data, including letting others access your hyperlocal weather via Weather Underground and other services.
Keap Wood Cabin Candle. I have this candle and love it — it smells great and lasts months and months if you don’t overdo it. A very sensible splurge.
Kindle Paperwhite. Overall, this is still the best ereader out there…I’m on my third model. The Paperwhite holds thousands of books, goes several weeks between charges, and is waterproof for beach/tub reading. And you can use Libby to check books out from your local library right to your device.
Art from 20x200. My favorite online art shop, run by my pal Jen Bekman. Here are some things to get you started: Hilma af Klint, letterpress print of Albrecht Dürer’s pillow drawings, Book Lovers Never Go to Bed Alone poster, Jason Polan’s Zoo Baggu, and Harold Fisk’s meander maps of the Mississippi River.
Cocktail Smoker Kit. I thought cocktail & food smoking required a large glass dome and some other fussy apparatus, but this tiny fire that sits on top of a glass looks pretty simple. I want to try this!
Babish Carbon Steel Flat Bottom Wok. Did you know that Binging With Babish has a line of cookware? I didn’t either until I bought this wok last year. I was trying to follow Kenji’s advice on wok-buying (14-inch, flat-bottom, carbon steel, thick gauge but not too thick) and his usual (and cheaper) choice was sold out, so I went with the Babish one and I really like using it.
Apollo Remastered: The Ultimate Photographic Record by Andy Saunders. This coffee table book contains hundreds of images from the Apollo program, recently rescanned and remastered from the original photographic film that rarely leaves a frozen vault at NASA. I haven’t seen this book in person but it sounds amazing.
Amazon Gift Card. Let’s destigmatize the gift card: there is no shame in not knowing what to get someone for a gift, even if you know them really well. This is actually the gift of getting someone exactly what they want, even if it’s something practical & lame like razor blade refills, HDMI adapters, or laundry detergent.
That was fun — I’ve genuinely missed doing this. But I have too many things in my shopping cart now… 🫠 I hope you find this useful and that everyone has a good Father’s Day.
P.S. If you need even more ideas, I used the following gift guides in compiling this one: Wired, NY Times (one, two), The Verge, GQ, The Strategist (one, two, three), My Modern Met, Kitchn (one, two), The Spruce, and BuzzFeed.
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