Christening Gifts: Who Gives What and How to Avoid Doubles

This article is a map of the whole topic. The chapters below are detailed guides to each type of gift — here you'll find out which one belongs to whom and how to combine them so they don't overlap.

For most families, a few months pass between the hospital and the christening. By then the family has a wardrobe full of onesies in three sizes at once and a pile of soft toys, of which the child will love exactly one. A christening is about something else: it is a ceremony where the child is named before a community and two adults take on a role they will play for years. Many Australian families now hold a civil naming ceremony led by a celebrant instead, where the godparents may be called “guideparents” — the logic of the gifts is the same. The gift should match: it carries a name and a date and is meant to last.

Practical things aren't banned; they simply move from the main gift to the small gifts from guests. The difference is simple: in ten years you can pick up the main gift and show it to someone, while everyday presents will have been eaten, crawled through or outgrown by then. What a family usually receives straight after the birth is covered in baby gifts for a new arrival — whatever is ticked off there, don't buy again for the christening.

With keepsakes, one thing decides: whether there is something in them that can be made only now. An engraving with the date of the ceremony, a hand print in a size the child will never have again, a photographer for half an hour outside the church, or a book in which the child is the hero, with 12 illustrated spreads bearing their name. A generic gift from a department store has none of this and could be swapped for anything else.

Read the table as a split of roles, not a shopping list. Once you have shared out the roles in advance, the rest of the choosing won't create doubles.

You can't buy godparenthood with a gift, but it is the one role where a gift is expected almost automatically. The role itself does have rules: in Catholic practice a godparent must be a baptised and confirmed person who has completed their sixteenth year, is not the child's father or mother, and lives the faith they are meant to help pass on. Other churches have their own rules, so ask in the family's church. There are no rules for the gift — but what suits follows from that very role.

It is also worth knowing what being a godparent is not: it is a church and family role, not a legal arrangement. Who would care for the child if the parents couldn't is a separate legal question — check the rules where you live. A godparent is a relationship, not an insurance policy, and the gift reflects that.

The liturgical part. In many parishes the godparent carries the baptismal candle, lit during the ceremony from the Easter candle, and the white gown. Both are customs, not obligations: in some places the parents provide them, elsewhere the parish does. One question to the priest or the parents settles it in advance and saves buying a second candle.

The lasting part. Engraved jewellery (a cross, a locket, a bracelet), a watch put away until adulthood, a sum saved in an account run by the parents, or a keepsake with the child's name. With jewellery, it pays to engrave the back with the christening date, not just an initial, and to expect the child to wear it many years later. Which metal to choose and what fits on a small surface is covered in jewellery with a name and date.

With grandparents, two different things often get mixed up, and it is worth separating them. The first is a gift the child has in hand straight away — a keepsake the parents photograph and put away. The second is a gift the child will only see as an adult: savings set up by the parents, jewellery or a watch put away in a box.

A gift for adulthood has one condition people forget: someone has to find it and know what it is. A savings account with no paperwork in the parents' folder, and a box with no explanation of who it is from and why, will in twenty years either get lost or mean nothing to anyone. That is why such a gift needs a written letter — when it was written, for what occasion and what the giver wished at that moment. How to write it and where to keep it is in a letter to the future and a time capsule.

One last thing grandparents often wonder about: big items such as a pram, a cot or a car seat. They don't suit a christening, not because of etiquette, but because parents usually have one already or choose it based on things the giver doesn't know. Here asking first is a must, even if the gift loses its surprise.

A guest has the smallest role and the smallest risk of missing the mark — as long as they stick to things that don't double up into uselessness.

Coordinating sounds like an unnecessary formality until three lockets with the same date land on the table. It takes one message.

The card decides whether a gift is a thing or a keepsake. The wording below is ready to copy — just add the name and date.

The most common mistakes aren't expensive, just pointless — and all three can be caught with one question in advance.

Jewellery the baby is meant to wear straight away. A necklace for a baby is a gift for the box, not for the neck: loose cords, chains and beads on a sleeping or crawling child mean a risk of strangling and swallowing, and parents take them off anyway. The engraved date loses nothing; the handover simply moves to a time when the child understands it.

Clothes in the current size. The guests' most common gift and the item most likely to end up, tag still on, in the bag for exchanges. One size ahead costs the same and actually gets worn.

A religious item without asking. For a family that sees the christening mainly as a family celebration, a picture of a saint or a rosary misses the mark; for a practising family it is welcome, but that is exactly where three identical ones turn up. Asking isn't tactless; guessing is.

And one last thing that doesn't look like a mistake: a gift bought at the last minute just because “you have to bring something”. The date of a christening often depends on when the church is free and can come at a few days' notice. Even so, there is time for a gift with a name — a personalised digital book from Hero of the Book is usually ready within 15, so it can be made even the day before the ceremony, and in families where one child already has a book, it works as the next in the series. Any of these beats a fourth soft toy.