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Heathen in need of help
Jul. 22nd, 2009 10:12 amI am going to a christening on Sunday for my friend's twin daughters. It's not exactly a low-key thing either - the ceremony is in the Anglican cathedral in Cardiff and I know that my friend bought what she described as "very bling" christening gowns in the souk when she and her husband were in Morocco earlier this year. However, I'm at a bit of a loss and could do with some help.
I'm an atheist, unchristened myself and have only been in churches for other people's weddings and funerals. I am distinctly uncomfortable in church [strangely less so when I went to the Gurdwara for a friend's Sikh wedding, but that was just all so different to anything I'd experienced before that I was just taking it all in] and feel hypocritical just being there. I didn't go to the christening of the same friend's son because she didn't invite anyone thinking they wouldn't want to attend and was widely castigated by people, including me, for not asking people along and giving the opportunity to show their support for her and her family. That came back to bite me, didn't it?
I've only been to one christening before and I don't remember much about it. I was 19 at the time, working in a bar for 64 hours a week and Sundays were my only day off. I was exceptionally hung over having pulled an all-nighter that started with a lock-in after hours and ended in the staff house with crates of Hooch. As if to compound my shame and unworthiness to sit in the house of God, I'd snuck out of someone else's bed at 8am after a one-night wonder - a someone I later discovered was due to get married to someone else two weeks later - to meet my parents so we could travel to the church together. I snoozed through most of the ceremony as discreetly as I could and have no recollection of the after-thing [reception? Wake? What the hell do you call the do after a christening anyway?!] so I don't really know what to expect this weekend.
So, to my more well-schooled and less despicably depraved f-listers, I ask this: what the hell is going to happen? I've already guessed from the fact that it's in a cathedral that it's a posh frock do, so I'm sorted on that score. Should I take a gift, or a card? And if so, is the gift for the babies or for the parents? Or the Godparents? There'll be Godparents, won't there?! What is to be expected of the do afterwards? What should I expect in general? Help!
I'm an atheist, unchristened myself and have only been in churches for other people's weddings and funerals. I am distinctly uncomfortable in church [strangely less so when I went to the Gurdwara for a friend's Sikh wedding, but that was just all so different to anything I'd experienced before that I was just taking it all in] and feel hypocritical just being there. I didn't go to the christening of the same friend's son because she didn't invite anyone thinking they wouldn't want to attend and was widely castigated by people, including me, for not asking people along and giving the opportunity to show their support for her and her family. That came back to bite me, didn't it?
I've only been to one christening before and I don't remember much about it. I was 19 at the time, working in a bar for 64 hours a week and Sundays were my only day off. I was exceptionally hung over having pulled an all-nighter that started with a lock-in after hours and ended in the staff house with crates of Hooch. As if to compound my shame and unworthiness to sit in the house of God, I'd snuck out of someone else's bed at 8am after a one-night wonder - a someone I later discovered was due to get married to someone else two weeks later - to meet my parents so we could travel to the church together. I snoozed through most of the ceremony as discreetly as I could and have no recollection of the after-thing [reception? Wake? What the hell do you call the do after a christening anyway?!] so I don't really know what to expect this weekend.
So, to my more well-schooled and less despicably depraved f-listers, I ask this: what the hell is going to happen? I've already guessed from the fact that it's in a cathedral that it's a posh frock do, so I'm sorted on that score. Should I take a gift, or a card? And if so, is the gift for the babies or for the parents? Or the Godparents? There'll be Godparents, won't there?! What is to be expected of the do afterwards? What should I expect in general? Help!
