Traditional Gifts for Wedding Anniversaries

 Has anyone actually looked at the list of traditional gifts for wedding anniversaries? Do they seem a little odd to you? Who made up the list? Why is there a list in the first place? If you have no idea about any of these questions, read on. If you know the answers, read on anyway because you might enjoy yourself.

Obviously, I have looked at the traditional gifts for wedding anniversaries or I wouldn’t know they were a bit strange. For instance, I understand paper for the first anniversary. Most young couples money is always a problem. With paper as the traditional first present, couples can buy one another a pretty cheap present. They can buy a nice card and write a sweet inscription. That doesn’t cost much and everyone is happy. That one makes perfect sense.

Now the second traditional gift makes little sense to me. It’s cotton. Does that mean cotton fabric or a cotton ball or maybe a bole of cotton? I have no idea. Today cotton fabric is as popular as it ever was. Cotton fabric feels so good on the skin. A nice idea might be to buy one another matching cotton shirts. Kill me now! That should be for those people celebrating their 75th anniversary. They love to match. Finding a great cotton present might be difficult because cotton fabric has to be ironed. All right, I have no idea about this one. You are on your own.

The third traditional anniversary gift leaves me wonderful. Leather! Let’s keep this clean. A couple could exchange good leather wallets or briefcases, but that doesn’t exactly spell romance. I’m done; I won’t go there.

The next seven are really strange. In order the gifts are linen, wood, iron, wool, bronze, pottery, and tin. A great linen tablecloth would be a perfect gift for the bride but what about the groom. All I can think of is a linen suit but those are pretty expensive and wrinkle too easily. A linen handkerchief exchange would be cheap. A bride could give her golfer husband a set of woods and a set of irons for his next few anniversary, but what would the bride get unless she golfed too. A wool sweater exchange would be so sweet as long as they don’t match and the couple doesn’t live in Florida.

The heavy duty presents don’t appear until the 25th wedding anniversary. That’s the silver anniversary so buy one another some really nice silver jewelry. The next good one is the 30th which is pearl. Pearl earrings and some pearl cuff links would be next to perfect. The rest of the traditional are for the ladies as well they should be for putting up with their husbands all those years. Oops. I meant for being such great wives. Give her a coral for the 35th, a ruby for the 40th, a sapphire for the 45th, and some heavy duty gold for the 50th. If you should be so lucky to live long enough for the 55th, give the bride an emerald big enough to choke a horse. It’s diamonds all the way after this one. Give a diamond for the 69th and DIAMONDS for the 75th. Seventy-five years, enough said.

Who in the world cares what the traditional wedding anniversary gifts are anyway. Just remember to exchange gifts on anniversaries because getting a gift is always fun and greatly appreciated.