Donorbox

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Hannah's Christening

On April 3rd, Hannah was officially welcomed into the church. Graham and I walk a line between uber-Catholic and secular Christianity. (Is that even a thing?) We pray together (not as often as we should/would like to), go to church on Sunday, and before we even got married, it never crossed our minds that we wouldn't raise our kids in the church. We're both Cradle Catholics, and while I still consider myself somewhat of a "recovering Catholic" (I look for the holy water font in every church I enter, Catholic or not.), it was still important to me that  she be baptised/christened/whatever you wanna call it. Regardless of what Hannah chooses in her adult life, we wanted to raise her in the church--hell, A church--so that as an adult, she can make a more educated decision about the faith life she'll end up following. 

We went to a baptismal preparation class in February and we chose April for her christening so the weather would be better and so we'd have more time to prepare. At first we had hoped to keep her christening as a small gathering of immediate family. Then, family members were invited by adults who aren't her parents ::coughmomanddadcough:: and some people thought they were invited when they weren't originally on our guest list. A few awkward phone calls later, and we said, "Hell with it," and just threw a big ol' family party. Since most of our family members are awesomely Catholic, they were glad to celebrate with us. Wanna see what happened?

Posing with her godparents, Aunt Gina & Uncle Brian

 

 Meeting Aunt Cousin Kim for the first time. (Cousin Aunt? Aunt Cousin? How does this work?)


There were never such devoted sisters...


We're so white bread.



This is why I can't go nice places.


Hokay, so at the start of the ceremony, the deacon asked the parents to take their child & walk them around to everyone in the church who was there to celebrate with them & have them get the sign of the cross marked on their forehead. No problem, right? Yeah, except we had like a gajillion people there with us. Awesome! Except we totally held up the ceremony. OOPS.

"Uncle Don, I'd like you to meet my child, Simba...."



Deacon Sal!


Surprise! Uncle Brian got to read! Had we known there'd be reading involved, we would have warned him.


Let's all take a moment & observe how Brian stands exactly like his brother.


Thanks for indulging me.

Baptismal font & smelly oils....


I thought this was so cute. They invited all the kids in the church to come to the font & help bless the water. ACK! Adorable.


Our turn! There were 3 kids being christened that day, and Hannah was the only girl, so we got to go first.


It's go time!


She was cool with this. She loves bath time.


Oily.


Getting pissed off and rejecting the white garment they tried to place on her.


Digging all the applause she got.


Her candle wouldn't light. Not a good sign.



Candles & godparents. 


Okay, see that guy up there on the left? Yeah, he's a godparent to one of the little boys that was baptised. That kid gets TWO godfathers. No one told me we could ask three people to be her godparents. Deacon Sal left out that little detail. Moving on....

Final blessing.


Look ma, no sin!


Proud grandparents.





Four generations.


We forgot to get a solo picture of her before church, so we snapped a few before we took her out of the dress she like so much (read: kept spitting up on).



I'm pretty sure there are zero pictures of the party, which kinda sucks, but it was a good time. We had fun, and I'm glad people could come out for it. It was a good day, and we got to introduce our daughter to the whole family.

2 comments:

  1. Interesting to see this b/c I've never been to one. What do you learn at the class?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dear Hannah- I never did well with white dresses either...until I got married.

    Love, Auntie Liz

    Ps. Have your mother explain this when you're older.

    ReplyDelete

Tell me what you think. For serious.