Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2

Original poster

Christening gift

26 replies

74slackbladder · 12/09/2010 06:45

Would it be totally wrong not to buy a christening gift...circumstances are have been invited by ante-natal grp friend. we have known each other approx 6 months. have bought a card and recently given her lots of clothes (hand me downs).

OP posts:

BubbaAndBump · 12/09/2010 06:57

Fine IMO - Christening's are not about presents at all, and unless you're a Godparent or close friend/relative, think a card is perfectly acceptable. We invited some ante-natal group friends to our DD1's Christening and between the four or five families they bought us something small, but I wasn't expecting anything at all.

kitsmummy · 12/09/2010 07:46

We invited around 90 people to our DCs Christening - really it was a good excuse to have a lovely garden party with our friends. All apart from two brought gifts, I was mortified, I hadn't expected everyone to bring gifts, we just wanted to have a good day with our friends. So it seems it is the done thing to take a gift, but it can be small, just a book for the DC or something.

BubbaAndBump · 12/09/2010 08:15

christenings [mortified-at-own-misuse-of-apostrophe-emoticon]

thesecondcoming · 12/09/2010 08:52

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

proudnglad · 12/09/2010 09:05

Am not Christian so this is interesting to me - I thought Christenings were all about big pressies/cash gifts for dc's savings.

I gave a (good but not close) friend a cheque for £50 and a silver frame for her ds's Christening!!

Am really embarassed now, she probably thought I was really flash and has buried my gift into the silver frame graveyard! Have taken note.

proudnglad · 12/09/2010 09:06

Yikes - didn't mean Christenings are 'all about' gifts!!! I just meant I thought that was the done thing, I do realise it is a religious ceremony!

TotalChaos · 12/09/2010 09:09

I'm not Christian either, but would get a small gift, a children's book/item of clothing.

BubbaAndBump · 12/09/2010 09:09

Wow proudnglad - you can come to my next DC's christening then

HappyMummyOfOne · 12/09/2010 09:12

If the couple are religous and attend church regular I would take a small white bible for the baby but if they are not religious I would not take anything except a card. I always feel that christenings where the couple are not religious are just about a party/gifts.

thesecondcoming · 12/09/2010 09:15

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BuzzingNoise · 12/09/2010 09:16

I think it would be fine not to get anything. I went to the christening of 3 brothers and I'd only known the family about a year. My friend, the mum of the brothers, specifically asked me not to buy anything. I got the boys a card each.

June2009 · 12/09/2010 09:23

When people specifically don't want gifts the invitation usually says "no gifts required".
I must admit we didn't realise everybody would bring a gift and ended up with a lot stuff we never used.
Someone gave us a bible for children and I thought that was really appropriate. someone else gave us a huge photo holder that rotates and is just awful, still in the box!
I think it's fine to just bring a card, I would not have judged someone from not buying us anything! But I would take something, an item of clothing with a "gift receipt" so we could change it was one of the best presents we got too.

I'm I bought a silver frame photo book for a friend of mine and thought it was a great present, now I wonder how many she received!!!
We gave £20 to a friend who we met at an groups and have met pretty much every week since then. (so we'd been seeing eachother for about 6/9 months when the christening took place.)

MaMoTTaT · 12/09/2010 09:25

Boostini · 15/09/2010 12:26

I'm with Happymother of one. have often said to DH that we should have had civil naming ceremony for our babies as it seems to be a great way of getting lots of expensive presents for your children ! I don't begrudge it if the family concerned are religious and regularly attend church but don't feel quite the same if the family only seem to go to church for weddings and christenings !!

BuntyPenfold · 15/09/2010 12:29

Oh dear, I thought silver photo frames were generally liked as well...

kslatts · 15/09/2010 13:02

I wouln't attend a christening without taking a gift or putting some money in the card.

zipzap · 15/09/2010 14:13

At least a silver photo frame if you end up with hundreds you can use for the next christening you go to. Or store them in a drawer to add pictures to as your dc get older.

ds1 received a silver plated faux scroll that you stored your christening certificate in , all engraved with details of the christening...

So many levels of hideousness you can't begin to imagine but it's sooooo ugly, sooo naff, it's too small for the certificate to go in, got lots of sharp pointy bits that if you did have it out and young child got hold of it they could do themselves all manner of injuries on the wretched thing.

Who on earth wants to keep their christening certificate on display in such a grim thing? Wouldn't you keep it safe with things like birth certificates and passports and suchlike? (or lose it tucked into the family bible...)

And when I came to look at it in detail, they'd got the details on it wrong. Not like I could take it back anyway, but if you were going to get something engraved you would have thought you would have double checked all the details out

so guess this post is really saying - please do not even consider a fancy christening certificate holder as a present

loveulotslikejellytots · 15/09/2010 14:22

Ha Ha - ZipZap Dh and I got one of these for both our nieces when they were born.. not a christnening as neither SIL or BIL are religious.

They thought they were really nice, the ones we got were just a plain silver holder, and we had them engraved with (the correct) details! I must admit though, ive seen some hideous china ones! And both BIL and SIL have them in their cabinets at home.

pinkbasket · 15/09/2010 14:24

You having given her hand me downs surely has nothing to do with the Christening? A small gift is nice but no one can refuse to let you in to the Church if you haven't brought a gift with you. What about a nice book? You should be able to get one for a fiver or so.

BoingBoingBumpOw · 15/09/2010 15:34

We had a feeling that people would want to bring a gift even though we said it was them joining us at the christening which counted not gifts. So what we did to try and stop people spending stupid money on expensive gifts (e.g MIL!) that wouldn't necessarily be much use was to put a little note with the invitation saying that we were putting together a memory box for DS and it would be lovely to have a reminder of everyone that attended his christening and were therefore important in his life. This resulted in some lovely pressies such as handmade photo frames with a picture of our ant group babies, someone's much loved childhood copy of a Beatrix Potter tale and a gold sovereign that had been passed through the family. A lot of thought was put into each present which was so touching and it will be lovely to go through them all with DS when he is older and talk about the people who came to his christening. We also had a collection for Great Ormond Street.

KaraStarbuckThrace · 15/09/2010 15:47

Unless you are a Godparent, don't buy a Bible as that is usually what is given by the GP - they don't need more than one

Christenings are about welcoming a new child to the Christian Faith, and supporting the child's Christian life. It isn't about gifts, and certainly a nice card would suffice. If it is a close friend or relative I would probably get a gift(but something useful or a small toy) or some money for the child's savings account, I wouldn't buy a Bible unless I had been asked to be a GodParent, as generally that is what they traditionally give.

ChippingIn · 15/09/2010 16:12

I don't think there's any problem at all not taking a present, so long as you take a card.

If I wanted to take a small present and knew the family to be religious I would get a small bible story book - a first book type thing.

If they weren't religious then I'd just take a small toy.

Leave the bibles & other 'christening' presents for close friends/family.

Casserole · 15/09/2010 16:38

DS got so many Children's Bibles / Children's Bible Story Books at his. I recycled a few as gifts for others but loads of them had inscriptions inside - have had to spread them throughout house so we don't look like religious fundamentalists when people come round!

I did a photo album of the day for our neighbours and again for my brother - gave me the excuse to wander around not having to chat to people I didn't know, took loads of informal photos of the day and do afterwards, then put them in a photobook as a momento. They both seemed to really like it...

proudnglad · 15/09/2010 17:25

Who you calling Prouddad?!?!?!!!!

HelenaCC · 15/09/2010 19:19

I would always take a gift if I were a good enough friend to go to christening Id consider a gift appropriate. That said, your attendance not contingent on bringing a gift, its a religious ceremony after all and your presence is surely more valued than a present. Lerts face it Christenings not the highlight of anyoners social calendar (!?! - or is that just me?!?). I too would buy useful gifts like a book or quality wooden toy rather than christening tat... Hand me down clothes dont count as a christening gift!

Flip

1 2