We attended the Christening of our boy-twin friends (O and S) at the weekend. I'm pleased to report that even though G, R and I are un-Christened heathens, our heads didn’t swivel and our skin didn’t shrivel as we entered the church.
I find Christenings a bit tricky to be honest. I've said before that I have issues with people that use them as an excuse for a family knees-up or to get their darling offspring into a particular school. Also, I’m still quite scarred by a family Christening I attended a few years ago where the vicar said that anyone who wasn’t Christened would be going to hell, or words to that effect.
However, my friends with the boy-twins are Christian and attend church regularly. Their faith is part of their life and it was important for them to have the boys Christened and officially welcomed into their church. I like A and N enormously and they were kind enough to invite us to share in their day so I wanted to be there to support them.
Therefore we attended the service but I didn't join in with the recitations and dh and I declined the opportunity to receive communion. We all joined in with the singing (adding volume rather than tune) and the girls decided to test out the acoustics in the church by warbling along with the hymns and chatting along with the sermon.
R and G even survived being blessed by the vicar as we left the church. They were asleep at the time so I don’t think they will be too scarred by the experience.
The Christening was part of the normal Sunday service so the congregation was a mixture of family and friends and regular attendees. We were approached by a couple of members of the congregation after the service who congratulated us on the girls and said they were incredibly well-behaved and lovely to watch. Not bad for a couple of little heathens eh?!
O and S took the whole thing in their stride. One of them had a little struggle at the font (‘Attaboy’ I thought) but they were extremely well-behaved and snoozed throughout most of the service. A and N looked very proud and thankful and although I personally found the religious ceremony a bit hard-going, I’m glad we were there to share the moment with them.