Groceries?

Have you ever looked at the suggested gifts for wedding anniversaries?

Many of us know that the 1st anniversary is known as the ‘paper anniversary’ or that the 25th is ‘silver’, the 30th is known as the ‘pearl anniversary’, the 50th ‘gold’ and the 60th ‘diamond’, but did you know that the 47th is ‘books’?

Who comes up with these classifications? You can see the list of traditional and modern anniversaries here.

Life Skills Trainer, Jill Bonanno, joined me on Friday morning on 98.5 Sonshine FM for our regular Friday morning radio segment, Simply Living. Jill celebrated her 28th Wedding Anniversary on Saturday (orchids) and so we discussed a range of issues to do with anniversaries.

During our discussion, which you can listen to using the media player below, we discovered some very strange anniversaries.

Once you get up to around 40 years married you can expect some interesting gifts. The 40th is Ruby, 41st is land, improved real estate comes in at number 42. If you’ve been married for 43 years you get to celebrate with travel. It seems that once you’ve been married that long you get to splurge a bit and who am I to complain. Of course it doesn’t end there.

The one that really intrigues me is the 44th anniversary. Apparently, the gift for 44 years of love, care and travelling life’s road together is …. groceries.

Groceries? What is that about? Is that because you’ve already spent all your money on real estate and travel? Is it an admission that there’s no romance left? Is it a case of just giving up? “Sorry my love, but after 44 years the passion has gone. Here, have some two minute noodles and a cabbage.”

The 48th seems very well thought out. If you’ve been married for 48 years you can exchange optical goods with your beloved. I guess by that stage you’d probably need to renew your prescription.

Do you pay much attention to the traditional or modern list of anniversaries? Do you make a big deal of anniversaries with your spouse? What’s the most extravagant thing you’ve done for an anniversary?

About five years ago, on our 10th anniversary, Pauline and I invited a heap of friends and renewed our vows during our Sunday morning church service. It was a great time to catch up with people and to tell the world we weren’t just going through the motions, we were still madly in love. I guess we’ll do the same in another five years.

Have you got any funny or romantic anniversary stories?

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