Christine Siracusa: I'm Christine Siracusa, and you're listening to the Wirecutter show. [music]

Christine Siracusa: Hey there, it's Christine. And Father's Day is right around the corner, on June 21st. We've done a few episodes about Mother's Day on the show. And this year, we wanted to even things out and talk about dads, too. We actually have quite a few dads on the Wirecutter staff, so we wanted to let them take the spotlight for this episode.

Christine Siracusa: We asked a bunch of our colleagues with kids what the best gift they've received for Father's Day was. I hope their reflections give you some ideas of great ways to celebrate [music] the father or father figure in your life this year. We also have tons of great Father's Day ideas on our site. [music] Our gifts team spends a ton of time curating great gifts, and you can find those at wirecutter.com/gifts. Okay, let's let the dads take it away.

Grant Clauser: Hi, I'm Grant Clauser, and I'm on the audio, video, and smart home team. And I think the best Father's Day gift I ever received from my kids, although technically I know it was from my wife, was a backyard fire pit, uh Landmann backyard fire pit to be exact. I actually wrote about it in 2020, and even then it was at least 7 years old. But we spent a lot of wonderful evenings sitting around the fire, uh maybe roasting some marshmallows, or just telling stories. Unfortunately, last year, after sitting out in the backyard through all weather, I even left it out in the winter cuz I'm irresponsible, the bottom finally rusted out. My kids are a lot older now, so maybe they can afford to get me one of those nice smokeless ones this year.

Ben Fruman: Hey there. This is Ben Fruman, Wirecutter's editor in chief, and I'm here to tell you about one of the all-time greatest Father's Day gifts that I have received. They're socks.

Ben Fruman: Now, they're not just any socks. I know socks sounds boring, generic, the kind of gift you could give any dad, but these socks are special. These socks have my children's faces on them. These are personalized socks. They are a Wirecutter recommended gift pick in our guide to the best personalized gifts by Samantha Shay and Mari Uyehara. They are Divvy Up Custom Socks. And these socks are great. I have two pairs uh with both of my kids' faces on them. I have another pair with our beloved cat Rocky's face on them. These socks give me that sense of punk rock geeky cool personality even when I have to wear like work clothes. They're kind of goofy, they're fun, and I know this is going to sound very, very sappy, but I think what I love most about them is I sort of feel like I got my kids with me throughout the day. I'll be sitting in a meeting, uh obviously not a boring meeting, we never have any of those. I'll be sitting in a super interesting meeting, and I'll look down at my feet, and I'll see my boys' smiling face looking up at me, or my beautiful daughter smiling up at me, and it makes me happy.

Dave: Hi, this is Dave from the YouTube team here at Wirecutter. The best Father's Day gift I ever got is a little bit limited cuz my son is only 5 years old, but when he was in preschool him and his class tie-dyed a bunch of shirts for all the dads. And it happened to be the summer that tie-dye really came back into vogue. So, now I get to wear it and look good and he gets really amped whenever I do.

Harry Sawyers: Hi, this is Harry Sawyers. I'm a senior editor at Wirecutter. My team covers home improving, emergency prep, pets, and once upon a time I helped launch our kids coverage when my own kids were much younger. So, for Father's Day I am not a great gift giver myself, which probably explains why I don't get many gifts for Father's Day, although I do complain about it. Instead, I have a tradition. I write them all a letter, one page every Father's Day going back to 2013. I tell them what it's like to be their dad, how they are as kids, what being their parent has meant to me or what it means at this point at least. And it's meant to show appreciation and gratitude for the gift of fatherhood they've given me, although it probably veers into complaints itself. I started because it occurred to me when I was a new parent that I really would have appreciated something like that for my own dad and he didn't write that stuff down and he didn't really remember what it was like to be a parent of a young child either. So, I didn't have that and so I started just writing my own in case they ever felt the same way.

Christine Siracusa: We're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we'll hear about a great gift [music] for a music-loving dad and one for a sporty dad. We'll be right back.

Christine Siracusa: We're back and we're getting ready for Father's Day by hearing from a bunch of dads on staff at Wirecutter about the best gifts they've received over the years. We'll let some of our gift experts, Samantha Shay and Hannah Morrell, also chime in because, you know, they've got excellent gift advice. Let's hear.

Samantha Shay: Hi, this is Samantha Shay. I'm a staff writer on the gifts team at Wirecutter. And the best gift I ever gave my dad was a really simple Indian cookbook. When I was growing up, he did not cook at all. The only thing I ever remember him cooking were cheesy hot dogs. Ugh. So, he was probably in his 50s when I gave him this cookbook and it totally changed his cooking life and he learned to cook and he learned to follow recipes and he would cook entire Indian meals and it gave him a lot of confidence and he's still a terrible cook if he just goes at it alone, but if he has a recipe to follow, he can actually make a lot of delicious food. So, that was probably the best Father's Day gift I ever gave him.

Lee McCabe: Hey, this is Lee McCabe. I'm a home improvement writer at Wirecutter. Uh this will be my ninth Father's Day as a dad. Uh I really do appreciate the handmade cards and framed photos and and those kinds of sentimental gifts. Keep them on my desk. I look at them all the time. Those are great. The ones that surprise and delight me the most, the kinds of don't really expect to get but end up really enjoying are usually nicer or just slightly different versions of things that I use all the time anyway. So, one year my wife and daughter got me a variety pack of hot sauces, which was great. I have my one hot sauce that I put on most things [clears throat] and I know where to get it for a good price and I sort of stick with that. They got me this variety pack with 10 or 12 different bottles and it was fun to experiment and try different things out and found a few that I've sort of worked into my regular rotation, which has been great. Wouldn't have happened without that gift. And the other one I comes to the top of my mind is a pair of baseball pants. I play wreck league softball, not a very high level of competition, but still fun and you know, you want to be comfortable. I usually wear shorts or track pants and that kind of thing, but they surprised me with a pair of actual fitted baseball pants. They were a lot more comfortable than I was expecting them to be. They protect my legs a little better on the rare occasion when I end up on the ground. And a couple of my teammates looked at me when I first wore them and said, "Did you lose weight?" And I'm like, "No, definitely not." Couple people thought I was running faster, too, which was definitely not true, either. But, I guess they made a good impression and I'm really glad that they gave them to me.

John Chase: Hi, this is John Chase and I am the smart home editor at Wirecutter. I have two kids and they always give me wonderful Father's Day gifts, of course. And they're almost always handmade. And a couple that stand out that I really love, my daughter made a leather belt that is colored like a rainbow trout. I I fly fish, and so it's just this gorgeous, lovely, completely unique item. And my son gave me one of my most treasured gifts. It's a handmade mug, and on the side it says number four best dad. Thanks, buddy.

Thom Dunn: My name is Thom Dunn, and I'm a senior staff writer on the home improvement team. The best Father's Day gift I ever received, when I'm not testing the air conditioners, I'm also a musician. So, my wife and kid like to get me some fun guitar swag sometimes, and I think my favorite of all was one year they got me a graphic T-shirt with the fingering charts for a D, A, and D chord. Get it? I get a lot of a lot of mileage out of that graphic tee in a lot of situations, so that's always fun.

Hannah Morrell: Hello, I'm Hannah Morrell, and I'm an editor on the gifts team. My dad died this past year, but Father's Day was one of his favorite holidays. He always would send my brother and sister and I long ahead of Father's Day lists of what he was expecting from each of us this year, and at the time we always sort of like rolled our eyes about it. We're like, "Okay, Dad." And now it sort of has become like something I really value about him, and of course I see it differently now. This was a man who asked for what he wanted, and there was a tongue-in-cheek aspect to it, but it was he had had a sort of like a tough upbringing. He was not raised by his parents, he was sort of orphaned, and became a college professor, and you don't have that kind of trajectory by sort of letting life happen to you, and by not asking for what you want. So, things my dad has asked for over the years are like DVD players and a pontoon boat one year, language courses, a new watch. I mean, whatever was sort of like going on in his life, he would ask us for that. And so, yeah, I think this Father's Day I'm feeling really reflective on the gifts my dad has asked for in the past and the enduring lessons in his asks.

Christine Siracusa: As always, you [music] can find great ideas for gifts for Father's Day on the Wirecutter site, and we'll drop some links in our show notes, too. Happy [music] Father's Day. See you next time.

Christine Siracusa: The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Garen and produced by Abigail keel. Engineering [music] support from Maddie Massielo and Nick Pittman. Today's episode was mixed by Catherine Anderson. Original music by Dan Powell, Marian [music] Lozano, Rowan Nemi Sto, Catherine Anderson, and Diane Wong. Cliff Levy is Wirecutter's deputy publisher and general manager. Ben [music] Fruman is Wirecutter's editor-in-chief. I'm Christine Serclesset. Thanks for listening. [music]