Felicity Hannah Kate | August 2023

Just a month after Hope and Leo’s naming ceremony I was back at Whitley Bay’s Marvel Hall, this time for my friend Carly’s little girl Fliss. It’s starting to feel incredibly special that I’m there for certain families’ life events, seeing familiar faces and getting to celebrate different members of the same family. I led Fliss’ little cousin Lottie’s naming ceremony earlier in the year and now many of the same family members were back together. It’s fun, too, how different each naming day - or wedding - can feel, despite many of the same elements and - in this case - many of the same people.

On this occasion, the focus was on Felicity as the perfect final piece in the puzzle as the third (and, I’m assured last!) kid in the family. As with many recent ceremonies, covid has delayed proceedings so we were celebrating Fliss not as a baby or toddler but as a little girl with her own established personality and place in the family. Sometimes parents ask whether their child is “too old” for a naming ceremony but I honestly think there’s no upper limit. It’s exciting to celebrate a baby - and it might be the case that certain guests don’t yet know their full name as they are so new on the planet, and the name is a genuine announcement. But it’s equally exciting to celebrate an older child: who they are becoming and how they have shifted their family dynamic.

There were two parts of Fliss’ ceremony that made it particularly special, the first of which being a poem that her big sister Violet had written for her little bestie’s naming day:

This is a poem for my little sister
On her special Naming Day
Your nickname is Dottie or sometimes just Dot
I wanted a baby sister and that’s exactly what I got
I love spending time with you
Teaching you things and what not to do
I try my best to be kind and caring
But often you shout at me and aren’t good at sharing,
We’re not just sisters, we’re best friends too
The sweetest little sister in the world is you!

Understandably Violet was a little shy when it came to it, so I stood and read it with her at the front and she got a huge round of applause.

The second lovely element was a family sand ceremony. It seemed fitting, with little Felicity completing her family as the final member, that we did a sand ceremony with a rainbow of colours, signifying how each individual person makes up the happy gang. Not to mention the fact that sand felt fitting in seaside town Whitley Bay, with the family settling in to their new home by the beach.

It makes me smile to imagine that sand jar sat on a shelf in their home, reminding each member of the family how loved and important they are whenever they glance up at it.