The least Christian christening in a while...
Mrs. Doom is the daughter of a former nun and trainee priest (clearly something went a bit wrong for God somewhere along the line there), and as such was raised Catholic. Furthermore, she has absolutely shedloads of family in Ireland. Owing to this we felt badgered / compelled to get our children christened over in Dublin, to keep that side of the family happy. The first mini-Doom, a few years back, went well enough, but this is the story of our second, William, one month ago today.

Owing to the epic journey from Porstmouth to Dublin by car, coupled with my job as a member of the teaching profession, we had to wait a while before it was convenient to make the trip over, thus William being able to crawl - quickly. Thankfully the priest didn't seem to mind having the alter ransacked by an eager 10mth old, bouncing about and giggling with what can only be described as a saloon-bar laugh, so we left him to it with the relatively small number of assembled family watching happily.

Then it comes to the bit where you make all sorts of promises - "Do you promise to look after this child to the best of your ability?" type stuff to which the parents and godparents drone a grudging "I do" in response. Or at least they would if they weren't, as we discovered at that moment ALL atheists. Any question concerning God in any way shape or form is met with sullen silence, the priest reluctantly saying "I do" on our behalf. Feeling a little shamed by this it comes to the bit where the bouncing giggle-bomb has to be clothed in a white garment, 'wrapped' in Jesus according to the words of the priest.

Jesus, in this instance, was played by a crisp, white, hotel towel, hastily shoved into a bag at the last moment before heading off for church. We had to hand Jesus back to the hotel, so I strongly suspect that by the time of writing, Jesus has been washed several times and used to dry the genitals of various sextagenarian tourists and sales clones.

My favourite sight of the whole event though was afterwards when, investigating the church while all the paperwork was being done, my father in law found a switch on the wall. No-one can resist an unmarked switch... no-one. An old lady was visitng the grotto depicting the Blessed Virgin Mary appearing at Lourdes, and, as she looked at this very tacky, life-size diorama, the BVM's halo began to intermittently switch on and off. "Ahhh, it must be broken, it doesn't seem to do anything!" says father in law and wanders off to sabbotage something else.

Very surreal experience, being in church... Can't say I'd recommend it...
( Sonic James Doom forgetting the date since... umm..., Fri 2 Sep 2011, 23:45, 1 reply)

This business is taken very seriously, at least by the clergy.
Read a priest's memoirs years ago in which he mentioned that after a christening he overheard that the baby's head had been coated in Vaseline at the time. As this meant that the holy water hadn't actually touched the child's head, the blessing was void.

He had to visit the family and somehow distract the mother and get the baby on its own so he could scrub a little patch of its head clean of grease, hurriedly splash some holy water on and babble the appropriate words before anyone caught him. Mad.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Sat 3 Sep 2011, 22:03, closed)