Jun 6, 20235 min read

Celebrating Our Daughter's Confirmation | Podcast

Updated: Jan 12

Hey, you! 😇

So here we are a few days after I mentioned our daughter's confirmation here (click here for the post) and a few more days after the actual event.

A confirmation is the rite at which a baptised person, especially one baptised as an infant, affirms Christian belief and is admitted as a full member of the Church.

When the Husband, S, and I started talking about our daughter's confirmation celebration a few months ago, we weren't sure yet what we wanted to do. We knew we wanted to share this occasion with friends and family, but where would we celebrate it? And how many people would we invite?

For her first communion, we celebrated it at La Porcherie in Vigy, France. We were around 70 people. The place had a nice outside area - perfect for cocktails and appetizers. Their specialty is Roasted Pork, which we had alongside potatoes. They also prepared the starters and desserts. The place is charming in a rustic kind of way. It was nice, but I felt like something was missing. But I have absolutely no regrets. I didn't have to prepare anything, which was quite convenient.

This time around things were a bit different regarding the budget. As we are going to the Philippines for the summer, I knew that we couldn't spend as much. So we trimmed down the guest list to 40 of our closest friends and family. Tricky part was to find a restaurant. Forty is too little for a private room, which is rare to find in our city, and too many for a long table. So, the next best thing would be at home. Our friend C offered to host it at his place because he had just finished building his new home and he has a nice garden. This was great, but I knew that the Filipino in me would get triggered. LOL. 😅

If there's one thing you need to know about Filipinos is that we love food and partying. Well, that's two things actually. Filipinos love to eat, but most especially love to cook. Sometimes I still don't understand why Filipino food is so underrated! Call me bias, but it's the best! Anyways, where was I? Yes, Filipinos love to cook and please people, so we always always always end up cooking way too much food at parties. My list of food to cook was long but you don't even wanna know what the initial list looked like! Hahaha.

Now that the venue, guest list, and menu was established we could put our plans into action. I could start cooking some of the food and freeze them until D-Day. A good example are Cake Salé, roughly translated as Savory Cakes. These are great finger food and thaw really well. I also prepared all of my Filipino Lumpia (pork, shrimp and dynamite lumpia). These were half-fried, then frozen, then fried again on the day of the party. These were a big hit and I'm so thankful for our friend who was in charge of frying them.

This might get too long if I start talking about the food and the preparation. I reckon I should probably make another post about that.

Anyways ...

Our day started with the mass. S chose a white dress, which I thought was most appropriate for the occasion. Not too short, not revealing, not too fancy. I thought she looked really cute.

We were honoured to have the Archbishop officiating the mass, but it was loooonnngggg! Two hours and thirty minutes it lasted! Needless to say, I was not expecting this. 😑

During the communion preparation of S a few years ago, I remembered the priest then telling us that there is always at least one person who faints at a communion / confirmation ceremony. Therefore it is necessary to eat a good breakfast, drink lots of water, and sleep well the night before. We had been previously warned, but I was still surprised to see one of the boys faint not once, but twice during the ceremony. Poor guy! The emotions of the day probably got the best of him. I can't even begin to imagine how his mom must have felt!

I tried to hold back tears as I saw our daughter walk down the aisle accompanied by her two witnesses, my niece and my brother-in-law, as she sealed her faith. Deep inside, I was very emotional thinking that this was it - next ceremony at the church would be marriage. Hahaha. But I have a feeling this will be in a while.

These days I am just so thankful to be able to see my daughter grow into a woman. I don't know how many more of these events I'll be able to witness. My health hasn't been to great lately. I know that my confirmation was the last significant event my mom was able to witness so I had a little pinch in my heart.

Anyways ...

So earlier I made a little comment about the Filipino in me being triggered and I wanted to talk about that. If you've ever been invited to a Filipino party, you've probably noticed the obscene amount of food at the buffet table. It's a fact. There should always be more food than people and people should be able to bring food home if possible. That also means that I have to prepare everything on my own. I saw my mom do this, I know that my grandmother did as well, so in my mind (and in the minds of many Filipino moms), I tell myself if generations of women in my family could do this, then why can't I? Right? It's a lot to take in, but with the proper mindset and organization, it's doable. If you ask me for advice, just don't think about it that much so you don't stress about it. But I'm not even following my own advice because truthfully I might have had one or two mini panic attacks a few days before the celebration. But that's only because I let myself think about it too much.

Once I got over it, everything went smooth sailing and we had an amazing time thanks to our friends and family. A close friend reminded me that good is enough and I held on to that. I don't know what we would have done without them. In an effort to make things as eco-friendly and sustainable as possible, I asked friends and family if they could help out with some of the things we needed. As much as possible, I didn't want to buy brand new things for one usage. Friends immediately replied. In a few minutes, we had bowls, utensils, decoration, coolers, ice, tables, chairs, and a karaoke set-up! Again, I don't know what we would have done without them.

I was already emotional thinking of my daughter celebrating her confirmation, but the fact that we felt so much love from our friends and family was incredible. I will never ever forget this day.