to get rid of some of the Christening presents?

Quite amusing looking for advice on this and reading this comment in 2025

I forgot about all the money boxes. They are long gone.

Money boxes are the worst christening gift ever. Fact.

How much would silver spoons be worth? I do not feel that guilty about binning them but I should put some money in their accounts!

I am wincing at people flinging out silver. Sell it and put it in a bank account for them!

YABU, as they are more special than birthday gifts, give them when older

:) squeaky re draws one of my pet hates.

I'd polish them & sell them. They're not yours, but realistically your kids are unlikely to want them. Styles change for these things so they'll be unlikely to be able to sell them when they're older, somewhat removing the choice in any case.

Money in their accounts though.

We got given at least 5 bibles and 10 money boxes. Dh and I are religious and have a whole shelf of bibles already... The bibles I took back the local book shop they were from, explained, swore the owner to secrecy and swapped them for some lovely classical children's books. The money boxes I regifted all apart from one gorgeous one from godparents and one lovely pottery one. Really, two is enough for any child
Swap, sell or regift and not feel guilty!

Sell them, use the money for something useful.

Agreed fatlazy, was just being facetious. Although if I was getting my baby christened (not that I would) I would specify 'no gifts' as we already had loads bought when she was born!

You owe it to your dc to keep them safe for them.

Donating stuff to charity is one thing, although still not the right thing to do IMO, but selling it and putting the money towards decorating costs is rude and disrespectful to the people that spent time and money choosing Christening gifts.

I don't know justabigdisco, I've been to quite a few Christenings and never bought any tat. I usually just buy them a Mothercare voucher or something, so that the parents can actually choose something useful for the child. I really don't get the point of this kind of trinket. I would rather I spent my money on something that is actually useful and not just a dust collector.

Don't have them christened if you don't want tat

Do not sling anything silver. You can get a good price for it nowadays. I think the 6 year old is old enough to decide if they want to keep the gifts, but I would keep the ones belonging to the 3 year old for now, just in case.

They are hardly likely to know or care at the age of 6 and 3 that their christnening tat was thrown away.

If they were older I would give them the choice, but as they are young I would just sling it, personally.

But then I keep nothing.

*gifts. typing too quickly to get my point across.

It doesn't matter what the goifts are or what condition they are in. They do not belong to you so you have no 'right' to dispose of them. As other posts have said, put each child's gifts into an individual, labelled box with a list of who gave what and when.

They do not belong to you.

The thing unless they are given antique silver or similar it is just expensive tat. Mine used the money boxes when they were small and the potery is collectable if they are into that sort of thing. Most of it is waste of money. We also have many childrens bibles and prayer books which I can't throw out. I will give those to the DC whether they want them or not as most are signed by the giver.

I'm all for decluttering. What are your DCs going to want with duplicated first curl pots in years to come? Keep the nice stuff and put the rest on ebay - you can buy the DCs something nice with the proceeds.

I would throw them away.

Actually, I wouldn't. I would feel guilty and give them to dd, who is a hoarder, so she will keep them (and clutter up my house) forever and ever.

You do know you can clean silver, right? Even silver plate?

silver can be polished :)

if it is solid silver it is worth money... and even silver plate can be polished up and sold..

Hmm. DH wanted to do similar with DS's christening presents when we moved overseas. I wouldn't let him. I told him they were not his gifts to dispose of, they belong to DS. He can dispose of them as and when he likes when he's older. But DH has no right to (and neither do I)

So by that logic YABU. Mind you, if you had doubles of anything I might be tempted to offload one of them.

I am slightly ashamed to admit that I recently binned several silver spoon sets when having a clear out.

They were all tarnished and I just thought, what's the point!

I have a similar problem. I have 6 DC so have had several such gifts in the attic for many years. I tried to get my adult DC to take their money boxes, picture frames and bunnykins dishes when they finally moved out. None of them want any of it......but they are now collecting similar from their own DC Christenings.

I was going to say it does depend how sentimental you are Im the 2nd least sentimental person on the planet I did keep some things from babyhood but not everything ,