The only Father’s Day gift I can recall my own dad getting was a plate of fried sardines. It was prepared by my mother, his ex-wife, who knew how gratefully he’d receive a dish he grew up with in the Italian neighborhood of a steel town dying with such theatrical flair that Bruce Springsteen named a song after it. (An acoustic Springsteen song, at that.) We lived in a nearby city that had plenty of red-sauce restaurants, but they weren’t serving tinned fish in those days. As my father had only the most limited of food preparation skills and didn’t date the kind of women who could cook, this was the only way he’d ever taste that flavor again.
As Father’s Day gifts go, being united with a long-lost recipe from childhood is pretty good. If you can pull it off, that’s what you should give your dad this year. Otherwise, I have here a few ideas I’ve spent the last few months gathering for various types of dads and across many different budgets. With the exception of a few things picked by other dads on the team, these are all things I’ve personally tested and approved, and I hope they make your dad as happy as those sardines made mine.
The Best Father’s Day Gifts for Your Dad
For the Dad Who Plays With His Kids
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Photograph: Martin Cizmar
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Courtesy of Amazon
Spyra
SpyraFour Electric Water Blaster
Maybe your dad has fond memories of the Super Soakers of his youth, but the SpyraFour is the new best water gun ever made. WIRED has been covering the German brand’s powerful electric squirt guns since 2023, and they’ve only gotten better over time. Just ask my daughter, who has to use the SpyraThree while I blast away at her with this gun that refills much faster (it sucks up enough water for about 20 shots in a cool 12 seconds) and has a full digital smart display to select between shooting styles and show you how much ammo you’ve got left. This is a very powerful squirt gun that shoots accurately up to 50 feet, and it’s recommended for kids who are at least 14. I can confirm that when I let my 11-year-old and her friends play with it, the battle often ends in tears. This only adds to the appeal as a gift for any dad over 40—when I was her age, we threw rocks at each other, and I had to go to the emergency room to get stitches you can still see. Good times.
Playing catch is one of those classic activities dads and kids love to do. Over time, I’ve found, it transitions from the kid asking to toss the Frisbee around to the adult asking. Yes, the Aerobie is still the best flying disc you can buy, but the real reason to gift it is as an excuse to toss it around and talk.
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Aerobie
Pro Ring
Playing catch is one of those classic activities dads and kids love to do. Over time, I’ve found, it transitions from the kid asking to toss the Frisbee around to the adult asking. Yes, the Aerobie is still the best flying disc you can buy, but the real reason to gift it is as an excuse to toss it around and talk.
Bocce is the best backyard game—it’s great for people of all ages and has no learning curve, though it’s possible to get better with practice. I hoard bocce sets from thrift stores and have owned like four; the best set is one like this from St. Pierre, which is made in America and is the brand they use in tournament play.
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St. Pierre
Tournament Bocce Set
Bocce is the best backyard game—it’s great for people of all ages and has no learning curve, though it’s possible to get better with practice. I hoard bocce sets from thrift stores and have owned like four; the best set is one like this from St. Pierre, which is made in America and is the brand they use in tournament play.
