The Joy of a Baby Shower
I love the particular type of wonder and hopefulness that we all feel when we go to a baby shower. Often when I look around the room I see many eyes looking at the mother-to-be. Her family and friends or work colleagues like clucky hens serve beautiful sandwiches, cakes, scones, tea, coffee and sweets. It is such an accepted and acceptable tradition in western countries now that there numerous websites giving lots of information and ideas from how to organize the baby shower, choosing a theme, gift ideas and the fun part of games and prizes. It is a very beautiful tradition because it celebrates the coming birth of a child and it celebrates the mother bearing the child!
Then there is the great fun of the actual day itself (which is usually in the third trimester of the pregnancy). Sometimes it is a surprise for the Mother-to-be and at other times she knows all about it. It is often only a ‘girls’ affair but there are variations of this with partners also welcome. I guess this is because there is so much ‘girlie’ talk about babies, birth, baby clothes, baby names etc.
The party is usually not at the Mother-to-be’s home to save her from worrying about all the organizing and cleaning up. Sometimes it is at a friend’s home or the home of a family member. At times, women hire a hall for the event. Having it on an afternoon is becoming ppopular.
A baby shower need not be a costly affair because food preparation such as cooking, making sandwiches etc can be shared by many. Guests do not expect to have really expensive prizes and the mother-to-be can say whether she wants a lot of gifts for the baby or whether a contribution towards some of the bigger costly items, such as a pram and cot for first time parents might be better than many smaller gifts.
Even the preparation can be fun for the organizers, say, for example, in choosing a theme. One such theme was a Teddy bear’s Tea party – everyone bringing along a teddy bear and having a teddy bear cake and maybe a game or two related to a teddy bear. The possibilities are numerous.
What about the gifts? People bring gifts for both the Mum and the baby. I remember one of the last baby’s showers I went to. I took a gift for the baby as well as home made cards I make myself which were affirmations for this new mother to use around giving birth. She loved them and said she really needed them! Some will give the Mum a Pedicure voucher or a frozen meal for her to keep for her homecoming after the birth.
Enjoy reading here on this site. You will find a lot about babies and baby showers.