Baptism Ideas
Our second was baptized this last Saturday, and man, was this kid excited. The next day he tried to convince us it was really Saturday so that he could get baptized again. He is a character for sure.
I've learned a few things on the whole deal and thought I'd pass it on.
Purpose
First off, as fun (or stressful, depending on your personality type) as it is to do all the extras, baptisms are about being baptized.
Wow. So insightful, I know, but it's so easy to forget that. The focus needs to be on the child and their choice to follow God.
That means that Mom or Dad or Grandma or whoever needs to not be so stressed out trying to put on the Perfect Event that the child is inadvertently treated poorly. Maybe it's just me, but I can get so focused on the job to do that I can forget why I'm doing it.
Sometimes I see some spectacular kid's birthday party with all the fixin's on Pinterest and I wonder at what cost that event was put on. I mean, there are some people out there that are amazing planners and super creative and can whip out an event like I can change a diaper and to those people I am in awe. But to the rest of us, I just would throw out a caution to remember that everything comes at a cost. There is only so much of you to go around and if you wear yourself out sewing the perfect table runner or whatever then you won't be able to give that piece to your child.
But we're all different. What is stressful to one is absolute joy to another. I'm just saying, think about it.
Food
The policy in the area we lived for our first child's baptism said that we couldn't do any sort of food afterwards. At the time I was kind of bugged by that, as we had tons of family that we wanted to feed. But grandparents saved the day and took us all out to an Italian restaurant afterwards. It was amazing.
I didn't have to even think about food.
It absolutely took the weight off of me.
This time around they offered again and I wasn't about to turn that down! We have moved so we weren't constrained by the No Food rule but I'll tell you what, I remembered how peaceful that allowed that day to be and I kept things very simple this time.
Wanting to have something for our friends that were coming, I just did 2 types of cookies a few days in advance and froze them. My mom sweetly brought a 3rd type to the baptism as well.
But that was it. And it was great. It wasn't cute or clever or fancy. And you know what? The 8 year old loved it.
Gifts
Grandparents are pretty sweet. One set got the 8 yr old a cute bag filled with some goodies.
There was a bookmark, a tie tack (which he wore very proudly to church the next day), a baptism activity book, and a baptism pillowcase that he happily colored the next morning.
He was also gifted a nice set of engraved scriptures from other grandparents that we put to use.
We put them by the door and had attendees highlight their favorite scriptures before or after the ceremony. But this could easily be done with those cheaper scriptures as well. He really loved this!
Decorations
I did spend $6 at Value Village for a white tablecloth, but besides that, I just used what I had. I had one table in the back with the cookies, one table in the front with a few pictures, and one table by the door with the scriptures.
So that's a grand total of 3 tablecloths, or 1 tablecloth and 2 curtains because that's how I roll.
I just googled "LDS Baptism" and found both of those free printables for the big frames. And I even just printed the pic of my handsome young man on my printer. I wish I had actually had a photo but it didn't happen and it was good enough.
Program
My sweet boy completely chose every part of the program. I had an outline and just asked him who he wanted to do each part. He chose the prayers, the speakers, the music. It was just what he wanted.
While we waited for him and his dad to change and rejoin us after the baptism, we showed 3 short videos he chose earlier. We ended up having to show them straight off the laptop as we couldn't get the connection to the tv. Oh well.
It was such a great day. We were so happy to have so many family and friends there to celebrate with us. And we of course rocked the reverence too.
Sigh. I have a dream that one day I will be able to sit through 10 minutes of anything without anyone I'm responsible for making loud noises. Seems like a distant dream, but I'm sure it will happen. One day.
