Okay, back to my DS14 (Dear Son, aged 14) and his forthcoming “confirmation” preparation classes. Or, as they call it here, “at gå til præst” (“go to the priest”). And no, it has nothing to do with the very smelly, rather rude looking mushroom I showed you in Monday’s post! ;P “That smell? Must be the priest…
As I told you in Part one, confirmation preparation is scheduled into the school timetable. Not having any previous experience (we don’t have the same tradition in the Church of Scotland) I hadn’t realised that – duh – we actually had to sign him up for the preparation classes. Oops! Luckily, there wasn’t a problem with that. Just a simple case of filling out a form (available online from the local church’s website) and hot-footing it over to the parish office…
So far so good! Though, as we had feared, we didn’t really have any choice as to the actual date of the church service next spring (April/May 2015). Out of the four or five possible days, there was only one date still available. Take it or leave it! The church has to limit the number of “konfirmander” (kids being confirmed) to 20 for each service to avoid the ceremony dragging on and on and on. Not to mention the logistics of bums on seats bottoms on pews. But, hey, at least we now have an actual date! And can therefore tell family and our close friends to keep the date free. 🙂
So far so good! Though now that we’ve started to tell people the date, they naturally ask where the celebratory lunch/party is going to be held… At home? A tent in the backgarden? A local restaurant? Time for DDH (dear Danish Husband) and I to sit down and start some serious planning!
So far so good! Last weekend a letter came through the letterbox from the minister with lots of information and confirming the date of the church service. He (the minister happens to be a ‘he’ but happily we have plenty of female ministers in Denmark too) went on to explain that he would actually be leading not one but two services that day, in order to accommodate everyone. So would we prefer 10 am or 12 pm? Not sure what the most popular choice is. Perhaps 10am, so that you can sit down to an early lunch? Well, given that most of our family will be making the journey by car+ferry from Jutland (the other side of Denmark), we’ve asked for the late slot. Don’t want to run any risks and people singing, “Get me to the church on time!”
So far so good! Phew! And we can be thankful that it’s our boy being confirmed first. Have you seen the prices of confirmation dresses? Extortionate, even at half the price!
Exciting times…stay tuned to find out more!
Diane 🙂
You might consider covering the fact that the local kommune takes an official interest in whether parental gifts to the confirmed meet the official Danish monetary threshold. It is yet another of the great hypocrisies of Danish "secular" society. The kommune will actually send a letter to a non-custodial parent (even abroad) informing them that a confirmation gift falls short. The Danes are certifiably insane.
[…] 14) is at the age where many young Danes get ‘confirmed’ and, if you saw Part One and Part Two, you’ll know that he’s been in a bit of a quandary. To be, or not to be (confirmed). […]