Gift Box Tie and Dad Mug Coloring Page: Free PDF Sheet

Father's Day Gifts Through the Decades

How Father's Day Became a Gift-Giving Holiday

Father's Day in the United States started as a civic observance rather than a commercial one. Sonora Smart Dodd of Spokane, Washington, proposed the holiday in 1910 after attending a Mother's Day sermon and wanting a similar day to honor her father, William Jackson Smart, a Civil War veteran who raised six children alone after his wife died. The first Father's Day observance was held in Spokane on June 19, 1910. Congress made it a permanent national holiday in 1972, more than sixty years later.

In those early decades, Father's Day gifts were modest — a handwritten card, a small bottle of aftershave, a hat, or a tie. Retailers saw an opportunity similar to the commercial boost Mother's Day had received and began promoting specific gift categories for fathers. By the 1950s and 1960s, neckties, socks, wallets, and tools were the standard Father's Day gift pool. The phrase "what Dad really wants" became a recurring advertising headline because the holiday struggled to define a clear symbol the way Mother's Day had with roses and candy.

The Gift Box as a Visual Symbol

Gift-wrapping traditions in the United States became widespread after the 1917 paper shortage drove a Kansas City store owner named Joyce Clyde Hall — later the founder of Hallmark Cards — to sell decorative envelope liners as wrapping paper. The large ribbon bow tied around a box became the standard finishing touch by the 1940s because it signaled celebration, care, and effort in a way that plain brown paper did not. The bow-topped gift box appeared in Father's Day artwork and advertisements because it read instantly as a special present — even before the recipient knew what was inside.

Combinations of gifts in one box are a common Father's Day presentation. The necktie and coffee mug appear together because they represent two common gifting categories: the formal garment (tie) and the daily use item (mug). Both are practical enough to use after the holiday and personal enough to feel meaningful when customized with a message, a name, or a favorite color. Handmade gifts like a colored and decorated printable give children an active role in Father's Day gifting that a store-bought item cannot replicate, and the open gift box on this coloring page gives kids the space to imagine exactly what the presents look like filled with color.

The DAD Mug in American Gift Culture

Printed coffee mugs became a standard novelty gift category in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s as ceramic printing costs dropped and custom merchandise became accessible at mall kiosks and catalog retailers. The "#1 Dad" and "World's Best Dad" mug designs emerged from the same novelty-gift market that produced "#1 Dad" ties, trophies, and bumper stickers. Those three words on a coffee mug — short enough to read across a kitchen — made it one of the most purchased Father's Day gifts of the late twentieth century. Americans buy an estimated 400 million cups of coffee per day, which means a personalized mug is a gift that gets used every single morning of the year.