A Dad’s Guide To Holiday Shopping

November 27, 2017

It is officially the holiday season, and with Christmas fast approaching, dads everywhere will have to gather their wits about them to provide gifts and joy for their families. It’s a stressful time to be a dad, for sure, so we’ve put together a handy guide for how a dad can handle the terrifying proposition of holiday shopping.

Step One: Ask Wife What People Want

Moms ascertain what every single person wants for Christmas by roughly July of each year. She has a Word doc and everything. So first, dads have to go to the source of knowledge to figure out exactly what they need to buy.

Step Two: Immediately Forget What People Want

“Oh crap, what’s the name of that thing Jason wanted again?”

Step Three: Wait Two Weeks

The holiday season is very busy, and those two weeks really fly by. Dad would have gone shopping at some point during this time if he could just remember what everyone wanted for Christmas.

Step Four: Ask Wife What People Want

Moms know that they’re going to be asked about what’s on everyone’s Christmas list a minimum of three times each December.

Step Five: Realize Christmas Is Two Weeks Away

This is when the panic begins to set in. Christmas begins to feel real by this point, and the notable lack of purchased presents also seems real as well.

Step Six: Rush To The Store

Every single store will be filled with confused dads, muttering to themselves while looking over a list that’s clearly written with a woman’s handwriting. This is what we call the “sea of dads” and it’s very easy to get lost there.

Step Seven: Can’t Find Anything, Go to Amazon Instead

The problem with the sea of dads is that everyone is looking for the same thing, which of course has been sold out for weeks. This is when the enterprising dad decides to take advantage of technology by ordering from Amazon.com, where things never run out (unless they do).

Step Eight: Pay Extra For Overnight Shipping

Dads are in full panic mode at this point, so they’ll spend the extra money to get overnight shipping, even though they have a Prime account and can get free two-day shipping. They’re not thinking clearly at this point.

Step Nine: Realize You Got the Wrong Things

And then the dread hits when everything that they ordered were totally the wrong items. Christmas is ruined. There is no way to get everything returned and reordered in time. Dad must go to mom and admit his failures.

Step Ten: Discover Wife Already Bought All The Presents

Of course mom knew it was going to happen like this, so she had already bought all the presents right after step one began this whole process. She even bought dad’s present to give to her, because she knows what she wants and doesn’t want him messing that up when left to his own devices.

So dad can finally relax, knowing that yet again, he was able to successfully provide Christmas gifts for the entire family.