What To Get Dad For Christmas

It was always a little difficult buying things for dad because he'd only wear new clothes if he felt his old ones were too worn out. He also insisted on baggy pants and actually ordered his own clothes once he discovered L.L. Bean. I did find some nice warm shirts for him that he liked. With his arthritis when he was in his late 80s, he had a terrible time with buttons so he really liked the pullovers I found that had zippers instead.

One year, I took pictures of his cats and put together a customized cat calendar. When he opened it, he thought it was very nice because he likes cats but his eyesight was so good and he didn't recognize they were his until I pointed it out to him. Then he said it was "wonderful"! He hung it up in his dining room and did use it. He'd write birthdays on it that he wanted to remember and doctor appointments and always had stuff like news articles or comics clipped to the side.

I used to tease him about not flipping it at the beginning of a new month. I guess he just didn't have time to do it. When I went to flip it for him, he said, "Nooooo, leave it alone, I'll do it." It normally didn't bother me, but when he was using the cat calendar I made for him, I wanted to see each picture the whole month, especially the one of Sweet Thing because he was my favorite of dad's cats. Sweet Thing was on for the month of November, I think, and it was half way over before dad got around to flipping it.

Since he adored his cats so much, we often bought each cat something a little special which really pleased dad more than things we would buy for him.

To see a related article about custom calendars that gave me the idea for this post,
see Custom Calendars. Another idea is to give your dad my book, "My Funny Dad, Harry." (I couldn't resist, especially since Mountain Woman suggested it in a comment on my previous post!)