How to Celebrate an Anniversary part 2

There actually aren't a lot of photographs of the two of us together.  I had to scrounge to find these.  Usually one or the other of us is taking the picture. But it's a big enough sample to know one thing for sure. We are not particularly photogenic.  Important thing to know here, we don't care.

We have spent the past 23 years celebrating our anniversary in 23 different ways. Usually it involves food. We are all about food.  There are times when I prepare a special anniversary dinner for us and times we we opted instead for fine dining out, other times not so fine dining out.    We mostly dine alone anniversarily. But we have shared the occasion with friends as well.  We have even spent our anniversary with our kids.

Because we chose to get married one week before Christmas (what were we thinking?), there is always something to do, somewhere to go, and pretty decorations.   We have gone to the movies, to plays and to musical performances. We have gone on fancy cruises and to New Orleans. We have stayed in 5 star hotels and we have stayed home.  We have had home made cake, ice cream cake and no cake at all. 

This year our anniverary was on the weekend so we A) slept late both days..ahhhhhh!  and B) relaxed....ahhhhhh! before doing anything remotely planned.  We took that walk we talked about a few weeks ago in the arboretum after dark to see what it looked like all lit up.  (it was beautiful)  We went to see the musical of A Christmas Carol performed at the local theatre  (it was wonderful) and we went out to dinner in a very nice restaurant (it was fabulous). All this on top of the Gingerbread House Competition mentioned yesterday. In total, it was a very fun weekend.  It was bigger than fun. It was memorable.

That's the thing.  That's why we make it a point to celebrate our anniversary in some fashion every year. Even long ago when funds were slim and we were both exhausted and spare  time was an laughable concept. We still carved out that slice of time and made the effort because we matter. Both as individuals and as a unit, we are important. And if the effort is not made to make a memory, it seems as if we are not worth the energy, the time, the money. And we are.

Twenty-three years is not the longest marriage on record, but nowadays, it's sadly becoming an anomaly.  I know of people who married anticipating it being a short term situation.  There are TV shows that, disguised as entertainment,  demean the concept of marriage by setting up "marriages" between strangers!  That's how casual some people are treating marriage nowadays. How have we come to this?  Having so little regard for something so signifigant, so important.  It's a damned shame.

I've heard a lot of arguements against marriage and monogamy. "It's against human nature", "it's a meaningless social construct".   Well, maybe that's why 23 very happy years together is important.  Maybe the voices are correct.  If monogamy opposes human nature, perhaps the fact that we have suceeded in spite of that is important.  Perhaps marriage doesn't come with built in meaning, maybe over time we have given it meaning.

It doesn't matter if you celebrate your anniversary at Delmonico's or McDonalds. It really doesn't.  What matters is that you celebrate it, together, on purpose, because you want to, because you love being together with this other person so much that you want to make a big deal out of it.

Here's to our next twenty-three!