Father's Day is becoming more personal

— -- Dad may be logging some quality family time instead of revving up a new power tool this Father's Day.

As dads become more involved in family life and emotionally connected with their kids, families are celebrating Father's Day with more relationship and experience-driven gifts, show data from the National Retail Federation's Father's Day survey.

For the first time since NRF began its survey in 2004, the most popular gift for dad this year behind greeting cards is a special outing, with about 44% of consumers planning to spend on something like a family dinner or going to a sporting event, the NRF data show.

"The nature of the gifts are more personal," says Boaz Mourad, whose company Insight Strategy Group has studied the evolution of fatherhood in recent years and found that dads are more emotionally connected to their kids.

"The gifts are less gender role-driven and more personal to who the dad is and what they really like."

Companies have also been focusing on promoting gifts of an experience, NRF spokeswoman Kathy Grannis says.

Lisa Souza of Fall River, Mass., says her husband and 16-year-old son will take both sets of grandparents to lunch, spending about $150.

Consumers are expected to spend an average of about $117 each on gifts for dad, according to the NRF survey.

The 10% increase from last year's spending is "what we would expect," says Clementine Illanes, a retail strategist at consulting firm Kurt Salmon.

"What we've seen this entire year is you're up one month, you're down one month," she says of consumer spending.

"We're still in a spot that's unknown" when it comes to the economy.

But families are still trying to make dad feel special on the fifth-most-popular holiday for consumer spending behind the winter holidays, Mother's Day, Valentine's Day and Easter.

Miranda Saunders of Richmond, Va., spent $120 on cuff links that turn into lockets for her husband, filling them with photos of herself and her husband's three daughters (two older daughters are from a previous marriage).

"Spending the day with all his girls will make the day special," the stay-at-home mom says.