Christening

I have been writing about traditions relating to the certain calendar dates or times of the year. This month’s post is about christening party (ristiäiset). I wrote about choosing the name for the baby already in January, but I did not talk about the traditions relating to that celebration.

In Finland about 77 % of the population belongs to the Evangelical Lutheran Church, about 1 % to Orthodox Church, a bit over 1 % belongs to other religions and about 21 % don’t belong to any religion group. I’m most familiar with the Lutheran Church, so this post represents the traditions related to christening a child in Lutheran Church.

Approximately 75 % of all children born in 2012 were baptized to Lutheran religion. The christening party is usually held within 6 weeks to 2 months after the birth of a child. The party can be held at home, at parent’s parish’s premises (f. ex. chapel = kappeli or church = kirkko) or at another location (f.ex. grandparent’s home). Also baptizing parties with many children baptized at the same time are still held in the church, but very rarely. A child can also get an emergency baptize (hätäkaste) just after the birth, if the survival of the child is not certain. Anyone belonging to the Lutheran church can baptize in that situation. The child, that survived, celebrates, like other children, the christening party then also later.

In the christening the child is dressed to a christening gown (usually white, but can be also of other colors) and there is usually a pink or light blue bowtie attached to the dress. 

 The christening table is covered with white tablecloth and a Bible, a candle, a white, small linen, a small bucket of flowers and a christening bowl are placed on the table.

The parents may invite only the closest relatives and friends to the christening or they can have a bigger party. Usually the coming godparents, the grandparents and parents’ siblings with their families, grandparents, aunts and uncles are invited. So there may be only priest and 5 guests including the godparents or tens of people present at the christening. The celebration is quite short with a few psalms sung, some prayers, Our Father -prayer, confession, some Bible reading and the baptizing. In the baptizing the priest takes some water from the bowl and waters the babies hair (some priest make the hair all wet, some just touch the hair with the water).

The parents choose usually 2 - 4 godparents to their child among their own siblings or from their closest friends. A godparent must belong to a christian church, that recognizes the child baptizing of Lutheran Church (f.ex. catholic or orthodox) and at least one of the godparents has to belong to the Lutheran church. A person, who does not belong to church, cannot become a godparent.

In the old days the godparents usually took the new born to baptizing just few days after the birth, depending of course of the distance to the church. So naturally a woman still lactating was often chosen as one godparent, because she could feed the child if needed during the voyage. The baptizing happened normally on Sunday after service or just before the service. The mother was usually too weak to go to the church and also for long time she was considered to be dirty after childbirth and had to be blessed before she could enter the church again.

In the middle ages the baptizing was done by sinking the baby into the water naked after which a white linen was wrapped around the baby. The linen belonged to the church. In the 17th century christening was done only by watering the head so the first real christening gowns were made. In the 17th and 18th century the dress was usually made out of silk or velvet and could also be used later as a ceremony dress on other occasions. In the beginning of the 19th century the dress was started to be made out white cotton and the christening dress, as we now it today, was born. It could be also made out the same fabric as mother’s wedding dress had been made. By the end of the 19th century the gender of the baby was told with pink or light blue color and the dress was only used as christening gown. During the 2nd World War the babies were baptized wrapped in their mother’s wedding veil or a dress made out of the wedding dress and veil.

Nowadays the dress is typically white with some pink or light blue ribbons or bowtie. Many families still have gowns in which already the baby’s grandparent or grandparent’s parent was once baptized. Many people embroider the name and the date of a child baptized in that gown on the inner side of the hem of the gown.

The white linen set on the table for drying of the child’s head can also be a linen used in more than one child’s christening in the family and also on it can be embroidered the names and dates of the children.

The Bible on the table is usually the Bible the child’s parents have been given, when wed.

Godparents bring a remembrance gift to the child, f.ex. a spoon or a plate to which the child’s name, birthday and -time and christening day has been engraved to. Other guests bring clothes or something little to the child.

After the christening is the coffee. The table is filled usually with sandwiches or sandwich cake (voileipäkakku) and with sweet bakery like cream cake, buns, biscuits and a sweet pie or tart. The servings can be ordered from a bakery or then self made.

The baby is photographed in the christening gown with godparents, parents, grandparents and often with other guests too. The parents send to all the guests a thank you -card afterwards. Quite many parents also post a notice in the local newspaper stating the name of the new born, birthdate, christening date and birthweight and -length.