By Hollywood
After six years, we’ve gone and done it. Yesterday we did away with our anniversary.
At the time, getting married on December 29th seemed like a good idea. The whole family was already going to be in town for Christmas and love was pushing the date. Our marriage day was wonderful. I spent most of the day gazing into his eyes and we didn’t let go of each other’s hand the entire time. This was a day to be remembered.
Our first wedding anniversary rolled around. We were in Dallas celebrating Christmas with my family and didn’t feel it was polite to take an evening out of our short visit to commemorate. Instead, it was mentioned casually over a bowl of chips and salsa at a family dinner.
Our second wedding anniversary was spent in Utah with my husband’s family. Again, we felt taking a few days to ourselves wasn’t timely since it had been over a year since the whole family had been together. We swapped cards that morning and stayed up late talking to his brothers.
Each anniversary since then has followed this pattern. An anniversary this close to Christmas has no chance of success. But no more. Yesterday we officially pronounced Memorial Day to be our “love-i-versay,” the day we first hooked up. It was Memorial Day 2000. Adam came to my house and after 5 hours of talking we’d both realized we were made for each other. Equipped with our new love-i-versay, we can finally do away with our anniversary and the feelings of guilt we experience every year at its insufficient commemoration.
So watch out. Next year my husband and I are going to be BY OURSELVES for our anniversary. Mark my words, there will be no family pictures, Christmas caroling or pie-hangovers to stop us. The anniversary never did us any favors. We won’t waste another year on it. Make way for the love-i-versary!
That’s awesome! Good for you. Growing up, my mom always told us that if we got married near Thanksgiving or Christmas she’d kill us. So my two older sisters and I all got married in the same year…but not during Thanksgiving or Christmas!
Comment #1 by askmamaMay 29th, 2007 at 1:17 pmHmmm … this sounds like a great idea. For similar reasons I might have to cancel and re-schedule my birthday.
Comment #2 by danithewMay 29th, 2007 at 1:40 pmMy parents have the best anniversary ever…New Year’s Eve. It really is perfect. Everyone’s celebrating anyway. You get the next day off. Of course, my dad says they got married that day to save on taxes.
Comment #3 by Susan MMay 29th, 2007 at 1:40 pmHooray! We have a similar celebration called Clutch Day in July, but we celebrate it in addition to celebrating out anniversary in November. Any excuse for a celebration is good in my book:)
Comment #4 by Mrs MMay 29th, 2007 at 2:01 pmThis is the reason we bypassed Christmas vacation and got married on January 16th. We’ve got a three day weekend every year.
Good for you! And Happy Love-i-versary!
Comment #5 by cherylMay 29th, 2007 at 2:14 pmI’ve considered re-scheduling our anniversary. Not because if Christmas or family being together or anything like that, but because it always seems to fall on moving day. The past two years we were moving on our anniversary (June 7), and this year that’s the day the movers are coming to pack up our stuff. Of course, hopefully this will be the last move for a few years, at least, so it shouldn’t continue to be a problem. I hope. And if we changed it to a love-i-versary it would be either Dec 25 or 30, so that wouldn’t work any better.
Comment #6 by VadaMay 29th, 2007 at 3:50 pmMy parents got married on Dec 27th, and they usually celebrate over leftover pie and stale Christmas ham, too. My mom says it’s a lousy time for an anniversary, because you are just too dang tired to do anything about it.
Maybe I should tell her about your new found freedom!
Comment #7 by Heather O.May 29th, 2007 at 4:21 pmCan I reschedule mine too? We have the anniversary one week, dh’s birthday the next, and then my birthday the next week. Usually we just combine it all to have one night out without the kids. It doesn’t really make any of them feel special. I’m all for the love-i-versary!
Comment #8 by amelia bedeliaMay 29th, 2007 at 4:38 pmThat is really cool. My oldest child was born on our 3rd anniversary and, so, we pretty much have only had 2 anniversaries. We really ought to change ours and have a love-i-versary as well!
Comment #9 by VickiMay 29th, 2007 at 5:07 pmWe’re in the club of Dec. 29th. Thought at the time it was good cause it was after Christmas. I also had some LAME thing about not wanting to be married in the year 2000. I was young and in love, what can I say. So I too have thought about using May as our “anniversary” of the day we met. We’re not TOO bad at doing things on our Dec. anniversary but we are tired, spent all our money and everything is in black out dates. Good luck with your new venture!
Comment #10 by AmberMay 29th, 2007 at 5:17 pmWe always celebrate our date anniversary instead of Valentine’s Day (which is two weeks earlier). Our wedding anniversary is January 6, and we’re always too burned out from holidays to do much–we just go out to a nice dinner. Someday, we’ll go away for a weekend! (We’ve been married 11 years and haven’t yet.)
Comment #11 by dangermomMay 29th, 2007 at 5:57 pmI hope it all goes to plan. There is a mean little voice in my head telling me that if we’ve never been committed enough to pull off a weekend away so far, then we’ll never be able to do it on our new date either.
I try not to listen to that voice. I’m dreaming of charming Bed & Breakfast in Santa Barbara, and the kids hundreds of miles away. It’s a good dream.
Comment #12 by SarahMay 29th, 2007 at 6:08 pmso, what do we do about birthdays? i have a december 28th baby and her dad insists we just need to tell her that her birthday presents are wrapped and under the tree. he wanted a “christmas themed” party fr her last year. jerk.
Comment #13 by makakonaMay 29th, 2007 at 7:50 pmWe got married about a week before Christmas, so we celebrate that anniversary with minimal fanfare. We met in the middle of June, so we celebrate that anniversary full bore.
My poor husband: Last December was a milestone B-day for me and our 20th wedding anniversary - and this June is our 25th meeting anniversary.
Comment #14 by MichelleMay 29th, 2007 at 8:51 pmmakakona- we have a Dec 28 baby also. She is 16 now. We keep her birthday totally seperate from Christmas, I make sure we have the $$budgeted (no waiting till last minute!) we have no combined christmas/birthday gifts, no christmas wrapping paper, no birthday gifts under the tree! We like having her birthday then, it is a fun way to get rid of the after Christmas letdown. A long time ago we asked her if she wanted to celebrate at another time (her 1/2 birthday maybe) and she said no, she liked it when it was!
Comment #15 by KarenMay 29th, 2007 at 8:54 pmWhat a clever idea - a “love-i-versary.” I like it, it has a nice ring to it. My dh’s birthday is Christmas Eve and my baby girl was born on the December 21. She got completely jipped on her first birthday - we celebrated it on Christmas Eve with her dad’s birthday and the Christmas Eve celebrations all in one. I know, sad. I’ll be better on her 2nd birthday . . . . I hope.
Comment #16 by BubblesMay 29th, 2007 at 11:28 pmOur wedding anniversary falls in the midst of the first “run of reds” salmon that is. I’m usually home alone or at my daughters celebrating her twins birthday - they were born on our 30th anniversary and will be 13 this year. Wish I could be home with them but we are missionaries in Russia so I guess it will be just the two of us this year = and NO FISHING!
Comment #17 by alaskagrandmaMay 30th, 2007 at 2:24 amalaskagrandma, where are you serving? My parents are in Barnaul, Siberia which is part of the Novosibirsk mission, they have been out since Nov.
Comment #18 by moddyMay 30th, 2007 at 3:59 pmWe are serving a Humanitarian Mission in the St. Petersburg Mission. We live in St.Petersburg but travel around the mission. What can I say? “Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.”
Comment #19 by alaskagrandmaMay 30th, 2007 at 11:36 pmMy Actual Anniversary is ALWAYS during Memorial Day Weekend. It’s nice because we always get a 3 day weekend to celebrate. It’s bad because both our families live far away and potential babysitters are out doing Memorial Day stuff with their families.
Comment #20 by roster007May 31st, 2007 at 3:17 pmWe are always VERY lucky to get out by ourselves.
This year we got two hours to ourselves to eat out the day AFTER our Anniversary…
and a babysitting offer for us to go out to watch a movie this coming weekend.
We will take what we can get!
My anniversary is December 14th. It has not worked out for us to celebrate in December since we had got out of college and have actual stuff going on. Family Parties. Work Parties. Kids Stuff. Neighborhood Parties. Low of fundage. Blah. Blah. Blah. You know the story.
We now celebrate whenever we feel like it. Last year we went to Hawaii in the first week of November. We have also just celebrated it two month later which is actually Valentines Day. Somehow just taking it out of December has made it a lot more enjoyable.
Comment #21 by MakaylaJune 6th, 2007 at 3:35 pmMy dh and I both completely forgot our anniversary last year. We were both in our last semester of graduate school and it fell during finals. Over a month later we were in the check out line of the grocery store when I gasped and turned to my husband and said, “Did we miss our anniversary?” He looked at his watch with a panicked look on his face and said, “It was four weeks ago!” The older woman in line behind us laughed so hard she needed to lean on her cart to stay upright.
The sad part is, we were parted for 16 weeks a few months previous while dh was on an internship, so we made all these elaborate plans of going back where we stayed on our honeymoon, recreating everything, etc. and then just totally spaced it!
Comment #22 by emilyJune 20th, 2007 at 6:41 pm