Many people celebrate their children’s half birthdays with them, but in our family, beginning when our children were preschoolers, we celebrated the anniversaries of their baptisms. I wanted them to know they were baptized, why they were baptized and to remember what day it was in order to be thankful for it each year.
There were no gifts involved, but to mark the day, to set it aside as special, we invited their grandmother and their great uncle over for dinner. We explained, “Tomorrow is your Baptism Day! It’s a very special day, so we have invited Grandma and Uncle Rich over for dinner.” I got out their baptism candle to use as our centerpiece. They enjoyed the attention, and they enjoyed Grandma and Uncle Rich, so that made the day memorable. Even in middle school and high school, my kids, both boys, seemed to maintain a happy attitude about this tradition. They didn’t balk or question this celebration.
When they went to college, and we could no longer have family meals together to mark the day, I sent them a card with a fast food gift card enclosed. ( It is about impossible to find greeting cards that address baptism anniversaries, so the cards were pretty generic and adapted for this purpose.) It was at this point that I started writing about their baptism and why we celebrated it. It was a chance for me to share my faith with them, and they, of course, always liked the gift cards!
I continued this tradition after they were married and leading very busy and successful lives. In recent years, I’ve been trying to mark my sons’ baptism days by inviting their family to my place for a meal. I still give them a card to read with my thoughts about baptism and faith in it. Since they are so busy now, and sometimes out of town, I occasionally still need to send them the card with a gift card for a nice meal enclosed, but I’d rather have a family meal with them.
When my grandchildren were born, I continued this family tradition by helping them to mark their baptism day by taking the child out with me for a special day without their parents or siblings. This gives me the opportunity to bond with them and to hopefully create a lasting relationship, one-on-one. I choose activities for them that are just fun for them and for me, as well as fun eating places. We do not do “religious” things or talk about God or their church, necessarily, but I do give them a card to remind them why we are marking this day as special.
Now that they are all middle and high schoolers, I ask them where they would like to eat and what special activity they would enjoy. It has become much harder to think of special things to do with them, and of course, more expensive, but I think they still look forward to going out with me, and one or two of them can actually tell me when their baptism anniversary is!
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