"The year I forgot Father's Day. (And how I redeemed myself.)"

By LISA MITCHELL

My dad is notoriously hard to buy gifts for so I tend to come up with something he likes once, and then spend the next five years repeating that gift until Mum taps me on the shoulder and points out that he hasn’t actually been using my brilliant gifts for at least three of those five years.

But I refuse to give up. One day I will nail it. I will come up with the perfect present that sees him enter a state of lip-wobbling appreciation because of how thoughtful his youngest daughter is.

Which is what made it all the more worse when I plum forgot to buy him anything at all last Father’s Day. I blame myself obviously, and the fact our kitchen had been ripped out two days before in preparation for a renovation. Unless a reminder note is on my fridge, I forget everything.

No kitchen, no fridge full of reminders to gaze at.

Lesson learned.

My sisters are no help and my brother even less. I am the one who usually takes up the collection to buy gifts in my family. They are frustratingly lost without me and tend to forget to give me the money until my text message reminders become a little passive-aggressive.

Passive-aggression via text message to siblings is my specialty.

But back to the day in question…

Just as an FYI, you should know that this post is sponsored by Dan Murphys. But all opinions expressed by the author are 100% authentic and written in their own words.

I knew we were due at my parent’s house for lunch but for some unknown reason it hadn’t twigged that it was for Father’s Day.

Because I was kitchen-less!

Mum was doing all the cooking and I half thought lunch was being put on for my benefit. I was getting sick of takeaway and had another six days to wait for my new kitchen to be fully installed.

A text from my sister alerted me to the fact I had forgotten not only Father’s Day, but a Father’s Day gift.

“Just transferred $50 for Dad’s gift. By the way, what did we get him this year?”

My stomach absolutely dropped. How could I have forgotten? I was the family gift-getter and while my gifts didn’t seem to please my difficult-to-buy-for dad, a fact he sometimes seems strangely proud of, at least I tried. And tried and tried.

I had zero time to go to a shopping centre and buy God-knows-what and started frantically scanning the isles of my local servo, in my mind wondering if they might stock giant Toblerones and some fancy car accessory. Or maybe one of those compilation CDs would be at the checkout and I could give that to him with the giant Toblerone.

Could I just shove some cash into a Father’s Day card? My nieces and nephews seemed to love it when I did that.

Lame, lame, lame.

I was picking up a bottle of my favourite preservative-free red wine from my local bottle shop to take to lunch when I realised I was in the perfect place to buy a gift for almost anyone. Dad is a whisky drinker, and there are some very fancy looking bottles here. And expensive.

And they even had those long gift bags for bottles.

Redemption!

I chose a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label, my wine and some boutique beer for our barbecue lunch and I was quite excited to give it to him.

My siblings signed the card, glancing uncertainly at my choice of gift. It was a change from the hardware vouchers I had selected four years running and that mum whispered were not actually being spent.

Dad’s lips didn’t actually wobble when he opened up his gift, but I think he may have licked his lips.

And it’s a gift I can get him for the next few years.

Fancy alcohol.

Another gift-crisis averted.

What occasion do you always forget to buy a gift for? Is a fancy bottle of alcohol your go-to save as well? 

Here are some other occasions it pays to visit the bottle shop on your way to…

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