Heirlooms and traditions, part II (September 17 2007)

I still do not have a baby. Even though my due date was last friday, the little one is being stuborn and bucking all family traditions.
However, I do have my wedding veil hanging as a canopy over the little bassinet that awaits my baby. The veil, a gift for my thirtieth birthday from my mother and mother in law, is handmade lace, with lily of the valley (my favorite flowers) worked in them. A nearly extinct Belgian tradition asks for the wedding veil to be used either as a canopy over the babies bassinet, or to be cut up and used for the babies baptismal gown. I could never really do that, it would feel like destroying a masterpiece. So, I chose for the first tradition instead. We did run into a problem though with the question how to afix the veil above the bassinet. It used to have a special pole with a crown to drape it over, but once in the time since it has been lend out after I was born, that pole did not come back with it. Our ceilings are rather high, but for a while we thought of using one of those circles to drape a mosquito net over a bed. Unfortunately, this being the end of summer not the beginning, we couldn't find one in stores. In the end, it was my husbands creative genius that solved the problem when, all of a sudden he thought of a plant hanger hook! Indeed, in the nursery at home depot, we found the solution for our veil for about four dollars, talk about creative frugality.
I also talked too the deacon who will perform the baptism of our baby on the thirtieth (hurry up baby, hurry up!) and he allowed us to put a special prayer to the Holy Family at the end of the liturgy. We said this prayer in our wedding as well, and often pray it together. Since our home will be the first Christian environment this baby will know, we hope it will become important to him as well.
The sugarbeans that I mentioned in this post have been a great hit, as have the homemade bags. Since the original bags that were intended for the baptism may have gone missing, tomorrow I will start making a new batch. While the bags for the baby shower here in Columbia were made with cutesy precious memory fabric, for the baptism, I want something more elegant though. The bags that I had bought were ideal, vintage, hand embroidered with a lace border. (We got an incredible deal on them as my favorite lace store was doing them away on less than half price) but they seem to have dissapeared. I have not given up on them entirely, but should they not resurface, I want to be prepared. My mother and I went to Joanns today, and bought some pretty eyelet lace. Hopefully tomorrow that fabric will be turned into elegant little bags. We got it at a nice discount for five dollars a yard, but it looks so pretty... I am almost hoping that our little baby won't turn up tomorrow so I will have the time to actually make the bags instead of using the cardboard favor boxes as replacements...