Catholics not giving Christmas presents

[pottered]

Interested to find that a very religious Catholic friend of mine doesn't give his children Christmas presents. Does anyone do similar and is there a theological basis for this? I couldn't grill my friend as my jaw had dropped and it would've been rude but I'm wondering.

I do think Christmas has become too commercial but surely children get presents because presents were brought to the baby Jesus by the wise men? I can understand why adults perhaps shouldn't get presents.

Is father Ted opus Dei?

You said they are estranged from their own parents, maybe Xmas was not a happy time for them and they want something different for their own children.

I didn't ask about their childhoods - I agree this is the logical next step in my nosey-parkering :)

Working class Catholic stock here. We all give gifts at Xmas but a few generations ago our family were very pious on Christmas and did all the gifts and luxury at New Year instead. I think that was quite common in Scotland.

Just old fashioned?

No, Father Ted was not Opus Dei😂!

Mel Gibson is an Opus Dei member.

What about Father Jack?

Not Father Jack either 😂
Got mixed up with Mel Gibson; he's a member of Pope Pius X society not Opus Dei. Both similar secretive Catholic sects though; very different to mainstream RC.

Maybe they do gifts at Easter instead? I had the full 50s RC upbringing (in the 90s) and the attitude was that Easter should be a bigger celebration than Christmas cos anyone can be born, but only JC was resurrected.

PS Fr Ted wasn't Opus Dei, but I bet Fr Dick Byrne was!

I had the Easter is bigger than Christmas thing too! Crackers.

Oh God yes Fr Dick Byrne! And that scary nun maybe?

Is opus dei a real thing?

Yes.

One branch of DH's family in deep in it,. A cousin has risen to be "un pezzo grosso" (translates as a bigwig I guess) in it. Rumours of self flagellation on that side of the family.

The rest of the family are a bit sniffy about it. Too extreme for them. Which says something since DH's great grandmother and grandmother were part of founding some Italian Catholic women's group that wasn't exactly famed for its "liberal Catholic" qualities.

I live in a sea of mostly less hard core Catholics bar the newsagent's who have barred me from the shop for years cos apparently it is all my fault that Britian made Gay Marriage legal There is no lack of toy shopping at Christmas. If anything it is a bad time to be hampered by a genetic tendencies to be all rigid about queueing properly.

Ooh yes! I know the nun you mean! She was pure OD!!

Eggplant glad I wasn't the only one!!

Good Irish Catholic reporting for duty. I've never heard of anybody not doing Xmas presents, apart from a Jehovah's Witness friend. That said, every year our priest gives a sermon about materialism, Xmas not being all about Santa etc which falls on deaf ears . Also remember all the "Easter is more important" spiel.

P.s. I'm dying to know what weird stuff the Opus Dei woman had in her house??

Haha to no presents! I lived in the very Catholic Philippines for years, in the shopping malls Christmas starts round about July there!

Not Dick. Byrne. Maybe Fr Todd Unctious. Or Fr Stack.

P.s. I'm dying to know what weird stuff the Opus Dei woman had in her house??

Well they self flagellate and wear a weird thing round the thigh that sticks 'pins' in, enough to make a mark but not enough to draw blood.

www.cilice.co.uk/

www.odan.org/media_roche.htm

So much self-hatred in Christianity. And yet God is love. Don't they know He loves them, yes, even them, even the sinners, even the self-righteous?

JWs don't do Christmas or birthdays. RCs do. Opus Dei don't? I hadn't heard that.

That's truly frightening, Sashh.

but a few generations ago our family were very pious on Christmas and did all the gifts and luxury at New Year instead. I think that was quite common in Scotland.

Christmas was banned by the church for over 300 years in Scotland, only becoming a public holiday in the 1950s. People could be and arrested for being caught celebrating christmas.

Having said that my family are deeply christian, and although they give gifts at christmas time they don't follow many other traditions.
They don't have christmas trees, stockings, santa claus or easter eggs for that matter- they consider these things heathen.

Charlottenburg

Yep,I find the fundamentalist arm of all faiths frightening.

Never heard of no presents and I work I the RC Church. We do no Father Christmas/Santa for vaguely religious reasons, but that doesn't cut down on present numbers.

Opus Dei is fairly devout Catholicism but isn't cult. I think the flagellation and Circe are a bit of a myth.
opusdei.org.au/en-au/article/members/

Catholics do give presents a plenty and love celebrations. Easter is the bigger feast as it is the basis of all Christianity. That said most Catholics make a bigger secular deal of Christmas.