Gift guides4 min read
How to choose, what it should cost, and what to write in the card. A practical guide for sponsors, godparents and anyone who has been asked.
You have been asked to be a sponsor, or you are the grandparent, or you are the aunt who always turns up with the right thing. Confirmation is on a Sunday and you need to bring something.
Here is how to choose, what it should cost, and what to write in the card — which is the part most people find hardest.
Confirmation is not a graduation. Nobody has finished anything. It is a young person saying, in front of a room full of people who have watched them grow up, that the faith they were raised in is now theirs.
That is why confirmation gifts are traditionally things that last. Not a treat, not something consumed. Something they will still have at thirty, when they have forgotten most of the day but not who stood next to them.
The practical consequence: choose one thing that will survive a decade, rather than several that will not.
Nobody says this out loud, so: $20 to $50 covers almost every relationship.
Spending more does not make the gift better. A $16 necklace that gets worn beats a $70 Bible that sits on a shelf.
The sponsor’s gift is the one that tends to get kept, so this is the place for something with weight to it.
A study Bible is the traditional answer and still a good one, particularly if the candidate does not already own a grown-up copy. The ESV Journaling Study Bible has wide margins for writing in, which matters more than it sounds — a Bible someone has written in is a different object from one they have only read.
If they already have a Bible, a faux leather Bible cover is the better gift. It protects a book that will otherwise be carried in a bag for years.
For something that is not a book at all, the Holy Spirit Dove Suncatcher works because confirmation is specifically about the Holy Spirit. The symbolism is not generic.
Jewellery is the safe answer, and it is safe for a reason: it gets worn, and it is seen. The Faith Collection necklaces are gold plated on a 16 to 18 inch adjustable chain, which is the length that works whether she is thirteen or seventeen. Each arrives with a gold foil message card, so the verse is part of the gift rather than something you have to explain.
If she is a writer — and many are at that age, even privately — the Amazing Grace journal in natural canvas and honey-brown faux leather is a better gift than jewellery she may not wear.
The One Line A Day journal is worth considering for a different reason: one line a day is a commitment a teenager can actually keep, where a blank page often becomes a guilt object.
Boys of confirmation age are, as a rule, harder to buy for, and the usual mistake is buying something devotional he will find embarrassing.
The Cross Stoneware Coffee Mug avoids that entirely. It is 14 ounces of stoneware he will use every day without it being a statement, and it will outlive most of what he receives.
The Come Close teen devotional is written for that age rather than adapted down to it, which is the difference between a book that gets read and one that does not.
If you want the traditional gift, the ESV Journaling Bible in Good Shepherd is the same wide-margin format as the sponsor’s version, in a cover that will not date.
This happens more than anyone admits — a colleague’s son, a godchild you have not seen in three years.
Choose something for the room rather than the person. The Holy Water Font is cream ceramic, five by seven inches, and goes by a door. It does not require you to have guessed their taste in jewellery or their reading habits.
The Little Blessing keepsake box works the same way, and has the advantage of being where the rest of the day ends up — the cards, the medal, the photographs.
This is the part people leave until they are in the car outside the church, and it is the part that gets kept.
Three things, briefly:
Do not quote scripture unless it genuinely means something to you and to them. A verse chosen because it seemed appropriate reads exactly like a verse chosen because it seemed appropriate.
Confirmation season runs through spring, and the Sunday itself does not move.
Order at least a week ahead. Engraved or personalised items need longer, and the one thing worse than an ordinary gift is a good gift that arrives on Tuesday.