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Little Traditions
Happy Baptismal Day, Katie Grace! (insert obnoxiously long stream of celebratory emojis here-winky face!) One of the traditions in our family, small though it may be, is to make sure we recognize (and remind) our children of the anniversaries of their Christening dates. We sure could’ve made it a big yearly production, a birthday party of sorts. But let’s be honest. I’m not that good. I only started doing it a handful of years back. Maybe you’re better than me and have been doing it since year one. If so, that is amazing. Or maybe you’re a little more like me and didn’t think of it until later. This definitely falls into the “better late than never” category. I think I must have read a blog, heard a podcast, or attended a talk where that little light bulb when off and I have made it a point each year since to recognize that special day. Usually it is a text with an obnoxiously long stream of celebratory emojis, sent early enough in the morning that it will be the first thing they see when they wake up. I put my kids to the test recently and all four of them could tell me the date (plus or minus a day or two for one daughter who got the not-so-good-with-numbers gene from here mama.) Katie-girl was christened on my brother’s birthday. We have a remarkable number of special-date coincidences on our family calendar:
I was christened on my mom’s birthday
Pat was christened on his mom’s birthday (pretty neat, right?)
Katie was born on my birthday
Joey was christened on Valentine’s day
And some more trivial weird date coincidences: in our little Kenkel family of 6, we have two June birthdays, two October birthdays, and two December birthdays. (It gets weirder) Two were born on the 22nd of the month, two on the 26th of the month, and two on the 28th of the month-all even numbers. Not being a numbers girl, even I find that interesting. Emily’s husband, Alex, was born on October 19 and Mary’s husband, Kevin, was born in May, but on the 26th. We like to say that Alex is the oddball, but we don’t really mean it. Back to Katie- today is her day. I hope she enjoyed her text with the obnoxiously long stream of celebratory emojis. I hope she thought for a moment about the sacramental mystery of an event she doesn't remember except for the stories and pictures, and letters written especially for her from her family of faith- more on that in a later post. I hope she feels a gratitude for her beautiful self and remembers that she is not just a child of Pat and Christina, but a daughter of her heavenly Father. Happy Baptismal Day, Gracie-girl. 🙏🏼✝️💕👑🎉😇😘🌈🌸👶🏼😉🙏🏼✝️💕👑🎉😇😘🌈🌸👶🏼😉🙏🏼✝️💕👑🎉😇😘🌈🌸👶🏼 Reality (and humility) Check: one area in which I’ll admit we have been less-than-stellar: our godchildren. I have two and Pat has three. They are now in their 30’s, 20’s and the little guy recently turned six. Yes, we have recognized their birthdays every year, but we couldn’t tell you any of their baptismal dates. I'll bet if we had acknowledged those over the years, all but the little one would be able to tell you their dates. This light bulb went off recently. We believe it still falls into the better-late-than never category and we plan to fix it. Who doesn’t like to wake up to a text with an obnoxiously long stream of celebratory emojis?
