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Anniversary, Birthday, Celebrations|Pad Patter 4.11.17

bestcee

bestcee

In love with places I've never been to
Joined
Dec 18, 2013
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Yesterday was my wedding anniversary. DH had to work, and he ended up meeting me at Goodwill after he got off, where I was with friends. Most of our anniversaries have been really low key. So, I got to wondering about everyone else.
Do you have big celebrations for Birthdays, Anniversaries, those things that happen every year? Or just on milestone years? Or are they low-key? Do you make huge plans in your head like me, and then it doesn't actually happen?
 
I don't like to celebrate largely. So for me: no.
My parents anniversary is actually on Valentines Day so they always have a reason to celebrate. The big birthdays and anniversaries are usually celebrated with large parties and/or a holiday away.
 
Our family is small so celebrations are generally very low key, very casual. We often have a small family get-together, either in one of our homes, out at our trailer or in a neighborhood restaurant. We always buy birthday gifts and have some kind of a meal together. No one ever gets dressed up, we keep it casual with jeans/t-shirt kind of attire. It's all about just hanging out together.
 
For birthday's we almost always go to Red Robin Restaurant. We started going when they offered free burger for the birthday person. We only go on birthdays. We do gifts at the restaurant.

My hubby takes me out to dinner for our anniversary. For many years, our area had "restaurant week" around that date, which meant special deals at expensive restaurants. That was a great way to try some place new. He usually gets me a gift. I don't get anything.

When my hubby turned 50 I had a surprise party for him, but he wasn't too surprised as he had figured it out about a week prior. Oh well. This year I am going away for his birthday to a scrapbook weekend in the mountains. He said it was okay....
 
We usually go out somewhere nice for our anniversary and we do small, family celebrations for the various birthdays. Your comment about Valentine's Day @bestcee reminded of my granddaughter’s birth date. The doctor had scheduled a caesarean section for my daughter on Valentine’s Day and she refused to have it that day. There was no way she was going to give a little girl a Valentine’s day birthday on purpose. She was born February 15!
 
We do most everything pretty low-key. I've gone all out for kids' parties here and there over the years, but anniversaries come and go for the most part.
 
Always low key here, except for several big birthdays for the kids, but even those weren't really very complicated. My husband and I note our anniversaries by reminiscing and occasionally eating out, but rarely exchange gifts.
 
My daughter's birthday was Saturday. My husband's birthday was Sunday. We usually go out do dinner, their choice. But his year was also Masters Sunday, so we stayed home and I cooked Easter dinner since we are going to be out of town for the next week.

Now that we're all adults, birthdays are low key. Same with anniversaries. Just a family dinner.
 
bestcee said:
That's gotta be nice and frustrating rolled into one!
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Yes it is. Especially since when they married, back in 1975, Valentine's Day wasn't a thing in the Netherlands. Later on it flew over from the USA and now it's quite an event here as well. For us, as children, we always had to buy expensive flowers and going out for dinner as a family is weird on that day. But it sure is never forgotten and just this year they won a gift basket as a friend had sent in their info as the perfect Valentines love story. :wubb
 
We will usually go out to lunch or dinner as a family for any of our birthdays. The kids had parties when they were little but don't get one every year now. Now, it's only for milestone birthdays.
 
Birthdays here are not that big.. Hubby doen't like them yet he indulges me and we go out to dinner for both the closest weekend to it. Sometimes we will save our large puchases for end of Sept, beginning Oct as that is between our days... Anniversary is a special occaision. we try to go away somewhere, even if it is just a weekend. That is a special time for both of us. Big years we do extra special!
 
bestcee said:
Do you make huge plans in your head like me, and then it doesn't actually happen?
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it's all in my head for the *next one* but in reality, we are low-key... if low-key means were lucky to both remember on the actual day
 
My immediate family all lives in town so we celebrate everyone's birthday with a dinner & cake. We have dinner together every Thursday so it's usually the Thursday closest to the actual day. We exchange gifts, too.

We (my husband & I) don't do anniversaries.
 
We normally have quiet family celebrations for birthdays, we aren't big party people but we do make an exception for the big ones. It was my 50th this week and we had a Summer of love (67) party and everyone dressed up in their 60s gear and we had a Kombie photo booth and listened to all the best tunes of the era .... so much fun!
 
I grew up in a family that didn't have a lot of money, so we made a big deal of celebrations. Easter, Valentine's Day, & Christmas we always always received See's Candy from my parents. Yum! For birthdays we would pour over Mom's Baker's Coconut Animal Cut-Up Cakes book
to choose which cake she would make for us. We would dress up and have cake and ice cream after we opened presents. The best thing was our Aunts and Grandmas would send presents to us, too! Then Dad would take our photo with the gifts we got (I absolutely love those photos now) and another just by ourselves so we could see how much we'd grown Year to year.

I married into a family that would give a card and a check for birthdays, or just a card for other holidays. Sometimes an "experience". No big celebration. I had to train DH that I wanted dinner, cake & ice cream, and at least one nice present. It took a while, but he's caught on!

We go out to dinner for our anniversary. The other thing we do is buy ourselves something from the Traditional Anniversary gift list, and that's been fun, except for last year (20th is china, and we didn't need anything).
 
bestcee said:
Yesterday was my wedding anniversary. DH had to work, and he ended up meeting me at Goodwill after he got off, where I was with friends. Most of our anniversaries have been really low key. So, I got to wondering about everyone else.
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First off, happy anniversary! :) While I don't want to make this a competition, you did ask what people do, so here goes: for most of our marriage, DH hasn't even been in the same state for our anniversary because there's a conference he "has" to attend every other year. But frankly, I never really cared: he's so not romantic that even if he were home nothing would have happened. "Why are you giving me a card? It's our anniversary, like our wedding anniversary? Oh yeah, it is this month, isn't it?" *insert my eye roll* His job no longer has people attend that conference, but the "so low-key attendance isn't required" anniversary bar has been set. Funny enough, last month DD asked "When's your anniversary?" and DH got the date wrong! He said it without hesitation, like he's always thought it was that day lol.

Now, on the bright side: he doesn't think Hallmark Holidays (which include bdays and anniversaries, I guess?) require much--if anything--but he does little, thoughtful things throughout the year. Example: he made sure to buy me both Leiden and Netherlands Starbucks mugs while there this week. That's a big deal for me cuz they still sell my fave series, Global Icons, which you can't get in the States anymore. $30 in mugs isn't a huge gift in monetary terms lol, but the fact he made sure on the day he arrived to get them for me is very thoughtful of him!

And he's getting better about bdays: for my bday a few years ago, he got me the most perfect handbag. I'd been looking for a cross-body zippered purse that was big enough to fit all the junk SAHMs carry around for themselves and for their kids lol but small enough not to be confused with a diaper bag. It also had to have a thick, substantial strap that wouldn't break and that was long enough for my tall frame (I didn't want the purse sitting on my chest lol). He got me the most perfect one. I still get compliments on it and people don't believe me when I say DH picked it out by himself! Granted, he had to shop with me a few times when I was looking lol so he knew what I wanted--but the fact he paid attention and got all the details right really pleased and surprised me.
 
We are pretty low key around here. For birthdays, the person who's having the birthday gets to pick where we go for dinner/lunch for their birthday and of course we always go to DQ for our free birthday ice cream treat.

Anniversaries are pretty low key too, except for the 5 year ones... we try to do something special. For our 5 year, we did a B&B on Mackinaw Island. For our 10 year we went to an all inclusive resort and invited friends. That was SO much fun. In 2 weeks we are celebrating our 15 year anniversary so we are going to Chicago for an overnight stay. I'm really looking forward to that.
 
Happy Anniversary! We are a pretty low key family...........
 
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