To Christen or Not to Christen?

Yesterday hubby & I made our merry way to leafy Surbiton to attend the christening of our friends' baby. It's the first christening I've been to for about twenty years, in fact probably more than that, way back in the olden days when I had no choice over these matters and had to go wherever my parents dragged me.

Truth be told, hubby & I approached this outing with some trepidation, having no idea what to expect. I was slightly alarmed when we realised we were in a Catholic church as the last Catholic event I attended was a wedding which appeared to go on for about three days it was that long. And we only had an hour parking space, which hadn't exactly been easy to come by. However, I needn't have worried, we were in and out in less than 30mins. Although I'm sure hubby was disappointed that there were no hymns, as he does like a good sing along.

And then it was off to the pub for drinks and a hog roast, all in the glorious English sunshine - what better way to spend a Sunday afternoon?

It did set me thinking as to whether we would have our delightful child christened. It seems that you do get a heap load of pressies, which seems like a definite positive. But the downside is that you have to go to church and behave (or pretend to behave) like good Christians/Catholics, which would be very hypocritical of us. Still, I can set aside my morals in return for a nice pile of pressies. It's a miracle that I haven't already been struck down by the Almighty after insisting that the immortal line 'What God has brought together, let no man rent asunder' be included at the end of our civil marriage vows, just because I love the sound of it.

The other reason for getting all religious, apparently, is to be able to get delightful child in to a good school. Some other friends at said christening were telling us that the majority of schools near them in London have some sort of church thing going on and in order to get their daughter in to one of these schools they were having to attend church each week, do the Sunday school thing and the church flowers, etc. Eek! The 'ker-ching' of the private school till is sounding more pleasing to the ear by the minute.