It seems every year there are so many important occasions to celebrate. We have birthdays, wedding anniversaries, liturgical feast days, but other major occasions seem to be left out.One major occasion in my life that I never wanted to forget was the day I was baptized. This was a day I would rank right up there with my wedding day and the births of all my children. Truly, it is one that has changed my life forever! Now that we are converts to the Catholic faith where all my children were baptized as infants, I really wanted the importance of this beautiful sacrament to be remembered and celebrated each year, along with their birthdays.
Several years ago, I came up with the idea to make Baptismal Anniversary mats. Each year on the anniversary of a particular child's baptism, we set the dinner table with their personal Baptismal Anniversary mat, then celebrate with a special dessert, and share reminiscent stories about that special day. The mats provide wonderful visual aides. Now, when we are blessed to become God-parents, I like to make one for our Godchild.
Since the children did this as a group project, each mat was personalized with their own creative flair. The girl's mats had the prayers printed on pink and the boy's were on blue.
- Special pictures from their Baptism day
- Pictures of their Godparents
- Cards with their Godparents names
- Quotes from the Saint they shared their Baptismal day
- Pictures of the church they were baptized.
- Copies of a Baptism Prayer from this book
- Copies of their certificate of baptism (shrunken down on the computer)
We have recently added the feast day of Our Lord's Baptism to this celebration, and on that particular day we place everyone's baptismal mat on the dinner table.
