Phew! Oscar's christening went well, although I had to draw on all of my (limited) housewifely skills to make it fly. I was not to worried until a few days before the event, although spent a considerable amount trying to figure out where to host the dinner. As there would be 19 people, 9 of which were Irish, I felt like I should do something a bit Norwegian -which isn't the easiest to find in the Grønland part of Oslo, which is the most multicultural part of the city by far. Any kind of ethnic cuisine bar Norway's own it's a great place for. But I had managed to find a place that served game meat and cloudberries, and that was willing to let me bring in my own cake just this once.
Then, of course, a couple of days before the party, I suddenly had a change of heart and found myself desperatly wanting to have everyone over to our house (aka the dump). It seemed the only decent way to go to have a cake feast in our very own livingroom. Anything less, I felt, would make me a lazy mother with less than a minimum of commitment to my child's happiness (because yes, of course he is going to remember his christening party in a few years time, and of course it will matter to him that the cakes looked great and no one choked on a dustbunny).
So over the course of a few days I found myself:
- negotiating a good price on a stray piece of lawn chair that had once been part of a set
- sowing curtains for the guest room. Didn't know I had it in me.
- Tidying the house so it was unrecognizable
- having my parents blow up and hang up a huge bag of balloons
- making and using MMF (marshmallow fondant) with great success!
- baking
- baking
- baking
- Utilizing that nifty wet- and dry mop system my mother bought me before Oscar was born
- Scrubbing the toilet
- Frenzy shopping in rounds: three dresses in one hour. A tripp-trapp chair, four meters of blue diamond-studded tulle, a lawn chair, single-use plates and no less than 17 coffee cups with saucers on the next trip out. Then napkins, balloons, more napkins, baby blue candles, artificial flowers, artificial butterflies et cetera table cloths et cetera flowers et cetera. You get the drift. The apartment is still a vision in baby blue. I hope I'll have it tidied away again by christmas. My wallet still smells of burnt plastic.
All in all, quite the learning experience and very exciting. At the church, they had a nice lady who hinted when and where we were to stand, walk, sit and so on, and who brought us everything we left behind in the rush, so we weren't able to make too bad a mess of the proceedings there either.
It's almost a pity to learn all about having a baby christened (and arranging the christening party) just for the one baby. I feel like I should offer to have someone else's baby christened as well, just to use my newly aquired skillset. But I guess it doesn't work like that. Shame.
So if you have yet to do a christening party and have one in the future, here's what I learned:
- John was right: Irish people really don't eat as much cake as people from Trøndelag.
- John was right II: Not everyone will be sitting down at the same time, so you can make do with less seats than people.
- It's probably a good idea to make sure someone takes pictures on your behalf, seeing as you may be holding the baby a lot.
- Marshmallow fondant is a lot of bang for your buck effort-wise, and looks really impressive.
- No need to worry, it will all work out. Even if you don't own a perculator.
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