Thursday, October 30, 2003
With my first wedding anniversary rapidly approaching I have received my first taste of what the anxiety of trying to find the perfect gift most be for the millions of married folks out there. Fortunately, before I twisted myself in a knot, I remembered that there is a traditional list of appropriate gifts out there for each year. That is when I discovered that someone had updated the traditional list with a corresponding contemporary one and noticed some interesting trends.
Let’s look at the first one. The traditional gift for your first anniversary gift is paper. Now, if you’re like me, you’re wondering just how exciting can paper be? The answer is romantic and practical. You can easily fill this if a book, tickets to a show or go straight to the heart with a poem, but write it yourself. Don’t be one of those people who buy one of the multitudes of ready-made romantic verse out there. I highly recommend going the traditional route versus its contemporary; a clock. I suppose that is practical at least, but clocks on everything we own these days, I’m sure my wife isn’t in the market for a clock.
Skipping ahead to the fifth year gifts, we find traditionally wood in the gift given. Wood? “Happy anniversary honey, here’s a log.” Doesn’t exactly say I love you. The contemporary solution to this was to revise wood to silverware. Nothing exudes love like a fork.
The tenth anniversary comparison is where the lists get truly interesting. Traditionally, tin is the gift given. Again, not much better than wood, but at least tin or aluminum provide a bit more flexibility in terms of gift finding. Now, the contemporary offers a much more viable and expensive alternative, diamonds. Diamonds are traditionally given on the sixtieth anniversary, so I can only gather that these contemporaries have factored in the high divorce rate of this country, figuring their best chance at diamond was to bump it up 50 years.
The contemporaries did make an attempt to make up for this expensive change five year later at the 15th, exchanging the traditional crystal for watches. Sure, watches can be just as much if not more expensive as crystal, but if you’d dumped a few thousand on a diamond five years prior, you can easily fill this year with a nice $30 Timex. However, it’s a bit of an illusion as they stick it to you five years later.
How nice it must have been years ago to get away with celebrating your two decades together with a gift of China. Not that I advise in selecting china patterns on your own,but it is the perfect do-it-yourself gift for your wife. You could even get creative and surprise her with a trip to China. I like it; the contemporaries did not. Their gift is platinum. Platinum that precious metal retailing at roughly three times the price of gold. Yes, we’re back to jewelry for year 20.
After all these changes it is nice to know the traditionalists and the contemporaries all agreed that silver is indeed the appropriate gift for year twenty-five. But the contemporaries are back to their new trick in year thirty. Traditionally, pearls are the gift for your 30th, the new-age gift has been rectified to diamonds…again. Apparently, these folks feel if they survive this long they deserve more diamonds. Hey, pearls are pretty expensive too, but I guess they are just too old-fashioned. In keeping with modern trends, it seem our contemporaries gave up re-jiggering the list after 30, figuring they would either be dead, divorced or just sick of their spouse by then I guess.
There are a couple of other big gift mark-ups between the two lists in other odd years. Take the fourth anniversary with its traditional and easy gift of fruit or flowers compared to the contemporary of appliances? Then we have the ninth where traditional pottery as been expensively changed to leather. But my favorite comes in year eleven where apparently fashion jewelry is preferred to the traditional steel. I have to disagree with this; nothing says you mean the world to me more than a nice solid steel girder. Tens years to go, I can’t wait.
Let’s look at the first one. The traditional gift for your first anniversary gift is paper. Now, if you’re like me, you’re wondering just how exciting can paper be? The answer is romantic and practical. You can easily fill this if a book, tickets to a show or go straight to the heart with a poem, but write it yourself. Don’t be one of those people who buy one of the multitudes of ready-made romantic verse out there. I highly recommend going the traditional route versus its contemporary; a clock. I suppose that is practical at least, but clocks on everything we own these days, I’m sure my wife isn’t in the market for a clock.
Skipping ahead to the fifth year gifts, we find traditionally wood in the gift given. Wood? “Happy anniversary honey, here’s a log.” Doesn’t exactly say I love you. The contemporary solution to this was to revise wood to silverware. Nothing exudes love like a fork.
The tenth anniversary comparison is where the lists get truly interesting. Traditionally, tin is the gift given. Again, not much better than wood, but at least tin or aluminum provide a bit more flexibility in terms of gift finding. Now, the contemporary offers a much more viable and expensive alternative, diamonds. Diamonds are traditionally given on the sixtieth anniversary, so I can only gather that these contemporaries have factored in the high divorce rate of this country, figuring their best chance at diamond was to bump it up 50 years.
The contemporaries did make an attempt to make up for this expensive change five year later at the 15th, exchanging the traditional crystal for watches. Sure, watches can be just as much if not more expensive as crystal, but if you’d dumped a few thousand on a diamond five years prior, you can easily fill this year with a nice $30 Timex. However, it’s a bit of an illusion as they stick it to you five years later.
How nice it must have been years ago to get away with celebrating your two decades together with a gift of China. Not that I advise in selecting china patterns on your own,but it is the perfect do-it-yourself gift for your wife. You could even get creative and surprise her with a trip to China. I like it; the contemporaries did not. Their gift is platinum. Platinum that precious metal retailing at roughly three times the price of gold. Yes, we’re back to jewelry for year 20.
After all these changes it is nice to know the traditionalists and the contemporaries all agreed that silver is indeed the appropriate gift for year twenty-five. But the contemporaries are back to their new trick in year thirty. Traditionally, pearls are the gift for your 30th, the new-age gift has been rectified to diamonds…again. Apparently, these folks feel if they survive this long they deserve more diamonds. Hey, pearls are pretty expensive too, but I guess they are just too old-fashioned. In keeping with modern trends, it seem our contemporaries gave up re-jiggering the list after 30, figuring they would either be dead, divorced or just sick of their spouse by then I guess.
There are a couple of other big gift mark-ups between the two lists in other odd years. Take the fourth anniversary with its traditional and easy gift of fruit or flowers compared to the contemporary of appliances? Then we have the ninth where traditional pottery as been expensively changed to leather. But my favorite comes in year eleven where apparently fashion jewelry is preferred to the traditional steel. I have to disagree with this; nothing says you mean the world to me more than a nice solid steel girder. Tens years to go, I can’t wait.
