Christening Day
Okay so it was a while ago now, but thought I’d better share what we did for N’s christening (or is it baptism? I never know. I call it christening, the vicar said baptism, but he never corrected me so i’ll probably never know!).
It was held in our local village church with a lovely vicar. He’s got young grandchildren, so knows just how to make a service suitable for all. And crikey, it was very children heavy in numbers – 30ish adults (OH has a big family), my NCT friends, mutual friends and all the children – about another 20. N was really good during the service (what’s a little sick over his mother & godmother?!), and wasn’t even worried about the font and water bit.
Choosing godparents was hard and easy (my brother refused, being a little opinionated about the state of the world due to religion) but my best friend was the godmother. And we had my brother-in-law and the eldest nephew, which we thought was quite nice (although we did have to check with the vicar if it was ok to have a child godparent, as he’s only 12).
The ‘aftershow’ took a lot more organisation than I thought. Finding a venue is pretty hard as the village halls tend to be quite small round here. But we found one, managed to get it set up to cater for adults, kids and under 1s with a baby area complete with blanket/toys. A few balloons, my lovely home made bunting was brought out again, and we were set.
It was a nightmare deciding what food to have. Usually the OH says we have to have hot food, but we had cold meats and then got someone to make some salads for us to save some of the work. Rounding up the drinks left over from various parties & dos. Coordinating puddings made by mother-in-law (to die for sticky toffee pudding), sister in law (lush apple & blackberry crumble), and my Nigella lime cheesecake (never fails). It was great, although we did end up eating leftovers for a couple of days (bonus as no cooking needed!). I asked around and didn’t bother with catering for the babies. N would just eat what I had on my plate, as would a couple of the other babies; the other parents bought their own food along if needed.
We were so lucky with the weather being bright & dry for the end of October, as it meant the older children could just escape outside to play alongside the hall.
The biggest planning nightmare was what to do with the cake. My mother-in-law makes a great fruit cake so she made that, and my mum decorated it. She used to make us great birthday cakes when we were children, so it was probably a bit of deja vu. We only wanted quite a plain cake, but finding the right toppings and icing that would work was a nightmare. Eventually after several ideas and tests, we had a cake that looked really simple and classy, and very professional. I’m not a fan of fruit cake usually, but what I did have tasted great too (and N liked it as well – he’s a bit of a cakeaholic already).
The only thing that was a shame…we forgot to get a photo of N with his godparents, and in fact, many photos as all. Note to self, in future allocate the job of photographer at occasions where I’m likely to be running around organising & setting up, to someone else.