Do people have baptism/christening celebrations anymore?

[kittybean]

When I was younger, it seemed like my family attended all sorts of baptisms and baptism celebrations for children we knew, but I haven''t seen an invitation to one in years. I''ve also noticed that in recent years, people seem to just bring babies into church and have them baptized with few guests present and not much ceremony. Have christening parties fallen out of fashion? I''m just curious.

Note: this thread is not intended to be any sort of a discussion about whether to baptize/not baptize/otherwise religion-ize your child .

 

[somethingshiny]

In this area there are always baptismal, first communion and confirmation parties.

Usually they are just lunch and cake after services.

 

[artdecogirl]

In our family we always have a party for all of the above events, they are just family and close friends but it ends up being 50+ people every time.

 

[DivaDiamond007]

When we had our son baptized we had a small luncheon after church and that was it. My family is not religious so I never attended these sorts of things growing up. DH''s family is Catholic (as are we) and so we attend similar parties every now and then.

 

[lulu]

We absolutely do in my family.

 

[curlygirl]

Yes, we hosted luncheons after the baptisms of both of my daughters. We've also attended quite a few for family members and close friends.

 

[anchor31]

We hosted a luncheon after our son''s baptism last month. It was small, though, about 20 people. We have large families and couldn''t afford to rent a hall and have food for 100+ people! Then again, we didn''t invite everyone at our wedding either.

 

[lizzyann]

yes, I had a lunch after my DS''s baptism. It was a large party over 50 people.

 

[brazen_irish_hussy]

Of everyone I know, only a few and most of my family is Catholic. In my part of the country it certainly seems to be uncommon. I have definitely heard of more confirmations and bat/bar mitzahs though, so I suspect they invite people when the center if attention is old enough to have a clue what is going on

 

[Ninna]

Baptisims are so sweet and a must in our family! Our church numbers are large, I had the opportunity to witnessed about 2-3 this month, making our Sunday mass much longer- so it is a Ceremony

B Celebrations gotten smaller, many mommies are working and can be expensive. We only invited 25 immediate family members and hosted a brunch in our yard.
I also agree with Brazen_irish, older kids want larger parties for their Confirmation Bat/Bar Mitzvahs [ and should according to my mother. I tend to agree since this kids work so Hard to obtain it] where the whole family share with friends.

 

[Jennifer W]

We had a Christening for Amelia. We invited I think 25 people, plus an open invitation to our church congregation on the day (small church).

We had a buffet lunch and some champagne and cake. It was a really nice day, I enjoyed every minute. We had Amelia''s gown made out of my mother''s wedding dress. I loved that.

Jen

 

[Pandora II]

The UK isn''t very religious on the whole and among our friends 90% of them are atheist, so not a lot of christenings, however lots of them have had humanist ''Naming Ceremonies'' with cake and a proper party. We thought about doing one for Daisy, but never got round to it.

My brother and BIL had their children christened and a small party afterwards.

 

[iheartscience]

My family has had parties for all of the kids after their baptisms. (I have 8 nieces and nephews.) But it's just our family and sometimes close friends who are invited.

 

[Haven]

We''ve been to a lot of HUGE baptism parties recently. They were all for Greek friends, so I think that it must be in fashion in the Greek community, at least.

They''re always so much fun, and so adorable! The decorating themes are just too cute!

 

[Peepa]

My dad baptized our son.

It was an incredibly special occasion with only parents and siblings invited and we wouldn''t have had it any other way.

 

[Clio]

We had little brunches back at our house after each one of our kids was baptized. Just family and close friends.

 

[Sabine]

I''m still slightly upset that our baptism got snowed out. We live OOT from all our family/close friends, so we traveled back home during dh''s one week of leave to get ds baptized when he was 6 months, but our hometown got hit with that record snowfall. We were able to get the baptism done, but only immediate family made it to the church, and we had to cancel the party afterward because no one had power and roads were still impassible.

A lot of our extended family and friends still haven''t even met ds (he''s now 11 months), and I still get upset that we didn''t get to have our celebration.

 

[HVVS]

I''ve only seen people who were brought up in the Catholic faith do that. I''m Protestant, my nearest relatives lived a 2-hr drive away. The baptisms were done as part of the regular Sunday worship service, and there was no celebration or family get-together to mark the occasion.

 

[Lulie]

With all due respect to all: not only Catholics [easter/oriental/orthodox/apostolic/assyrian, etc] do infant baptisims.
Lutherans, Presbyterians, some Church of Nazarene, Methodists, most Reformed Churches in America and Canada along with some United Churches also practice it.
Amish, Adventists, Jehovah's W etc, do reject the idea which is fine with me

Our children had theirs around 6-7 months, we celebrated at home afterwards with lunch, cake, treats for all the kids and parents [

]

 

[Octavia]

I had never heard of a large christening party before this thread! I was raised Presbyterian, and any celebration generally took place during the post-service coffee hour (i.e. instead of cookies and brownies, there would be a cake in honor of the newly baptized person and their family). Some of their relatives who were not members of the congregation would usually show up for the service that day, but never a large group of extended family and friends.

Now that I''m older and live in a very different area, I would still be very surprised to receive an invitation to a baptism. I''m sure that some of our friends have baptized their children, but none of them have ever thrown a large party for the occasion. Moreover, DH and I do not attend church and feel that it would be inappropriate for us to attend something like that. To us, it seems like an event that should be shared among blood family and church family, but not necessarily with everyone else.

 

[janinegirly]

We had something very small with just immediate family at my parents house. Sandwiches, cakes,etc. I actually didn''t want to do anything (had no energy to plan and deal with family opinions on how it ''should'' be done), but gave in in the end since wanted to celebrate it for my DD. We are also Catholic but not very religious.

 

[lucyandroger]

My future ILs just attended a baptism party for their neighbor''s twins that was a full on bash. They rented out a hall, had it catered, and apparently the guest list was around 150 people - twice the size of my future wedding!

My family typically has a low key brunch either back at the house or in a meeting room at the church.