Gift for parish priest?

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After years of gift certificates to restaurants trying to figure out what each priest will like my wife hit upon the idea of just giving them money, i.e. a check as a Christmas gift?

Do you think this is a good appropriate Christmas gift for our priests?
 
Cash, gift cards, tickets - I’ve yet to meet a Priest who does not appreciate these.
 
Our priests in our parish loved and appreciated our checks. We too gave gift certificates to restaurants for years, but they really can use the money for whatever they need or want.
 
Fr. Groeschel was talking about that last night. He said to give money. The priest may have a special want or need not met with what he gets for his “salary”.
 
So do those who give cash rather than a gift, do you write a check? give an actual bill? or a gift card (like a visa card or mall money)?
 
Sr_Sally said:
So do those who give cash rather than a gift, do you write a check? give an actual bill? or a gift card (like a visa card or mall money)?
Click to expand...
Last year I wrote a check, cannot remember prior years.
 
kage_ar said:
Last year I wrote a check, cannot remember prior years.
Click to expand...
Thanks. That’s what I figured would be easiest. In the past, we’ve either gone in on a group gift (usually ends up being a gift card to somewhere) or we’ve known our clergy (priest or protestant minister) well enough to select an actual gift.
 
Here’s some ideas:

Ready-paid gas cards for him to fill his tank at a filling station near the church. Priests put a lot of mileage on their cars.

Ditto for a credit in his name at a local repair/filling station. Or go as a group project and take his car in for new tires and a rotation/balance if it needs it.

Gift cards for local grocery store. Priests have to eat too.

Amazon.com, TAN Books, Catholic Book Club… whatever… gift card to that so he can build his library and get books for his own continuing moral/spiritual education. One parish I was at, they gave us a list of books a departing priest wanted, and we all picked out one we’d pay for and signed our names to the book plate and gave a check and the lady handling it got the books.
All Father had to do was go through a long list and make up his wish list.

A certificate of hours donated to a project at the church… gardening, repairs, something to help.

Movie theater/Blockbuster cards. Priests like to go to the movies too.

A gift certificate to a good shoe store or shoe repair shop. I notice eventually priests all get a cracked sole on their right shoe from all that genuflecting.

And cash. If you want to be innovative about it, use it as gift wrap for a bucket of golf balls. (Are there priests who DON’T play golf?)
 
Liberanosamalo said:
Here’s some ideas:

Ready-paid gas cards for him to fill his tank at a filling station near the church. Priests put a lot of mileage on their cars.

Ditto for a credit in his name at a local repair/filling station. Or go as a group project and take his car in for new tires and a rotation/balance if it needs it.

Gift cards for local grocery store. Priests have to eat too.

Amazon.com, TAN Books, Catholic Book Club… whatever… gift card to that so he can build his library and get books for his own continuing moral/spiritual education. One parish I was at, they gave us a list of books a departing priest wanted, and we all picked out one we’d pay for and signed our names to the book plate and gave a check and the lady handling it got the books.
All Father had to do was go through a long list and make up his wish list.

A certificate of hours donated to a project at the church… gardening, repairs, something to help.

Movie theater/Blockbuster cards. Priests like to go to the movies too.

A gift certificate to a good shoe store or shoe repair shop. I notice eventually priests all get a cracked sole on their right shoe from all that genuflecting.

And cash. If you want to be innovative about it, use it as gift wrap for a bucket of golf balls. (Are there priests who DON’T play golf?)
Click to expand...
Yes not all priest play golf. Take Padre Pio for example? 🙂

But all priests want to feel like they made the right decision, right? Well I found this music which is mazing and is made by a grammy award winning producer. 🙂
You can never go wrong with a grammy. It is a CD with English, Spanish, Instrumentals for school choirs, fundraisers or personal karaoke 👍 Then there is also a tribute to one very memorable priest, Pope John Paul the Second. AND To top that (it is sold separately) there is an amazing, touching and moving, music video. I was privileged enough to get the chance to watch it.
This stuff is truly amazing. It is an “anthem of the priesthood” as they say it.
It is 10 USD each but they have amazing discounts for schools, churches, mass orders and stores. I saw them when I was trying to find a gift for my priest on google. Pretty awesome. They are on iTunes, and Amazon but personally I like iTunes!
They have T-Shirts, hats, CD’s, DVD’s, posters. Great album cover too.

This is great. It is an awesome gift for “Our Priests” Well time for me to buy some stuff.

To sum it up it is, well… AMAZING!
 
k5thbeatle said:
After years of gift certificates to restaurants trying to figure out what each priest will like my wife hit upon the idea of just giving them money, i.e. a check as a Christmas gift?

Do you think this is a good appropriate Christmas gift for our priests?
Click to expand...
A check is probably the best gift unless you know the priest well enough to be able to really pick something out that you know for a fact he’d enjoy.
 
If you’re hesitating about cash or cash in the disguise of a giftcard because it feels impersonal, you can overcome that by writing a really excellent thank you note to go with it!

You’re so knowledgeable when I have all these crazy questions–Amazon gift card

We see you go out of your way to visit shut ins and go to parishioner’s family funerals out of town (our priest drove THREE HOURS each way for this recently)–gas card

We love to see you have your mom in for the weekend and take such good care of her–groceries or restaurant
 
I was listening to either the Catholic Channel or EWTN radio on Sirius this morning (I think it was the Catholic Channel). Anyway, they had on a guy who runs a Catholic Charity in Hati where you could buy chickens, pigs, goats, etc for families in Hati. I am trying to find out what the organization is, I think our priest would really appriciate if we bought a goat for a family in Hati 👍 in his name
 
We always give our Priests a gift card to the grocery store,or you can give a gas card.
 
JustAnotherThou said:
I was listening to either the Catholic Channel or EWTN radio on Sirius this morning (I think it was the Catholic Channel). Anyway, they had on a guy who runs a Catholic Charity in Hati where you could buy chickens, pigs, goats, etc for families in Hati. I am trying to find out what the organization is, I think our priest would really appriciate if we bought a goat for a family in Hati 👍 in his name
Click to expand...
My parish has a sister parish in Haiti. I will PM you the name of my Parish - if you do not find the guy on Catholic radio, you can make a Haiti donation through our group 👍
 
k5thbeatle said:
After years of gift certificates to restaurants trying to figure out what each priest will like my wife hit upon the idea of just giving them money, i.e. a check as a Christmas gift?

Do you think this is a good appropriate Christmas gift for our priests?
Click to expand...
Well I might be a little biased because I so don’t like gift cards because they’re not very personal…
From your question I take that you know him for a couple of years so I figure you’d know best which of the following is applicable…
If he does a lot with the youth and enjoys doing so you might want to go ahead and get a CD with contemporary Catholic music… (A friend of mine is a priest and he does a lot with the youth… he loves that kind of a present.)
He might also enjoy a movie (gift card) if he’s open to that. I know priests who don’t like the secular movie industry for their portrayal of bad morals.

You could also get something rather individual… you could get everybody in the parish together, take an extra large group picture, find yourself an even larger white carton, affix the picture to the carton and have everybody write a nice note on there (thanks, blessings, etc.)… then you can frame it and give it to him… You might want to find out whether he can make room on a wall first though…

If you know him well enough you might even manage to lure him out of the house and secure a key… then decorate his living room all Christmas… that’s only an option if he’s very close to the congregation though… I know that I did that once with a youth group and he loved it… but that was a special case I guess… I mean he was doing the youth work so we all had a special relationship with him… he once told us to show up at 6 (meaning pm, but he didn’t specify) and we showed up at 6 am with a prepared breakfast…

You could go ahead and find out whether there is a book he wants or is looking for… or maybe a relic…

I’m running out of ideas…
 
Hi,

I can also recommend a new stole or chasuble. This is the ideal gift for an anniversary or ordination gift for a priest. Visit our website to see our full range. churchvestmentsworldwide.com

If you have an questions see the frequently asked questions page or contact me through the forum 🙂

Thanks
Elizabeth Lawson
 
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