Monday 5 March 2012

Baptism

The gown

Yesterday, the sun came out for the first time in a long time in Sydney. After days of heavy rain and dark skies, the clouds lifted, the sky was a glorious blue and the sun was warm.

A perfect day to take our baby boy to be baptised. This may seem odd to some of you who have been reading here for a while and know I'm not a religious person. It is something that Skip has felt strongly about, he wanted his children baptised in the church. I was happy to support him.

For me, it's been a wonderful way to welcome our kids into the world. A formal way of saying: "Hey there! Welcome." There has been a strong element of family tradition too in their baptisms, which was important for me and a way of including our children into a family with a lot of history. We have a gown that is over 100 years old and has been worn by four generations of my family, the girls and D are now part of that history. The church is where Skip and his brothers went to school, his brother was baptised and my great grandparents were married. It's nice to mesh our histories by baptising our children there.

As with the girls baptisms, we kept it very small, just immediate family and godparents. The people who are the most important to him, for now at least. The priest included the girls and the grandmothers, as well as the godparents and us, which made it special. As much as Skip and I are his parents, he's heavily influenced (and loved) by these people so for me it feels right to have a ceremony acknowledging it.

It was a lovely service, though D was pretty cranky the whole time except for when he splashed in the baptismal font and then rolled around on the aisle.

Afterwards we celebrated with champagne and sausage sizzle in the sun. A perfect Sunday afternoon.


Splashing in the holy water with his sisters.



6 comments:

  1. How beautiful.
    I love that the whole thing is so steeped in history and community for you.
    To me, that's what it's all about.
    :-) x

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  2. I love the tradition of it too. Beautiful! My kids wear a very old gown that I and my siblings wore, it's so pretty. It's that and a way to have a bit of a shindig (in our case) with about 90 rellies and friends and say 'welcome to the world baby! Let's eat and be merry!'
    xx

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  3. Ahh how lovely - he looks really happy in those photos! x

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  4. Just lovely Corinne. Love the history entwined in it all.
    Such a beautiful gown.

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  5. Beautiful.
    I love how your christening gown is so steeped in tradition. It makes it so much more special!
    Although I am quite a spiritual person, I chose not to have my children baptized and hubby did not argue. Sometimes I think I should take the kids to church since they have never really experienced it, but then I realize they probably know more about religion than some church folk do!
    Thanks for sharing such lovely photos...you know I adore seeing them! xoxo

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  6. Oh Corinne, I am so happy that you received a beautiful, sun shiny (rare) Sydney day for your little man's christening. Perfect timing for it really. Love the photos, he's such a gorgeous boy. And a sausage sizzle and champagne in the sun sounds brilliant... funnily enough we also did a BBQ and champagne yesterday for our niece's birthday xo

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Thank you so much for your comments! I'm always thrilled to hear from you.

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