christening or weekend break?

[nickelbeingnormal]

Dh has a full weekend off in october - the first weekend of half term.
this is significant because he has a rolling day off, so every 5 weeks he gets Saturday and Monday off together.

We'd decided to go on a weekend break as a family - and found a church in bournemouth we fancied visiting.

Today we received an invitation in the post to dh's niece's baby's christening, which is being held on the Sunday of that weekend.

It means that we wouldn't be able to go away for the whole weekend.and. it's
at a church that we couldn't stand when we were at the last christening. (Very loud, bands, excessive preaching and nasty lighting)

What shall we do?
It's bad form to skip the christening, but dh very rarely gets a weekend off where we can go away.

If you've already made plans to go away you just reply and say you're sorry you can't come as you're going away that weekend. Attendance isn't compulsory

If you've already made plans and you don't want to go / seems a waste of a free weekend

Personally I would say you've already got plans that weekend. Book something asap, like tonight, and then technically you are barely lying!

Do the family live far away? Could you visit them before/after the christening and take a nice gift?

TBH, the venue wouldn't play a part for me, as you would be going for the family event rather than the surroundings. I say that as an Athiest who attends the religious (multiple faiths) celebrations of friends, family & colleagues.

For me, it would depend on how close I was to my brother/sister and if this truly was the only opportunity to get away.

Though your post sounds like you've already made up your mind that you'd rather go away than attend the christening, tbh.

Sorry just realised that the baby is DH's great niece or nephew. In that case I wouldn't be bothered about missing it, unless you are a very close family and Christenings are very important to you.

They don't live very far away, about 20 miles. But we don't see them very often.
(Obviously dh is closer to them than I am!)

I think the problem is that I want to go away and he feels that we can't because of the christening.