Unanniversaries: Celebrating Spontaneity

My wife and I are a very affectionate, loving couple.  We celebrate days with special significance to us.  Anniversaries are a big deal.  Our wedding anniversary is a huge affair in our house, and while we don't necessarily have the money for diamonds and electronics to shower on one another, we make do the best we can.  We also celebrate the anniversary of the day we started dating.  (Not sure if this is an indicator of anything, but that's Halloween and April Fool's Day, respectively.)  The anniversary of the day we met also is cause to stop and make a big deal of the day.  We'd probably also celebrate the anniversary of the day I proposed if we could remember it, but given the Internet and about five minutes, because it occurred at a publicly advertised event, I could have the date, time, GPS coordinates, and even the menu of what we ate that night.  Google is a beautiful thing.

You'd think that with all this showering of affection that Valentine's Day would be a tremendous affair for us; Sweetest Day only slightly less so.  But that's not the case.  See, for us, those days are important to us because something happened on those days to make them important.  Recognizing days that the marketing machine tells us to be extra loving to our partner - especially Sweetest Day, which is wholly and completely an invention of the greeting card industry - makes us feel like we're doing what we're being told to.  So we openly boycott the contrived romantic days.  We don't make purchases in preparation for Valentine's Day, we don't boost the economy much that day unless we have to, we avoid restaurants like the plague, we don't wish each other happy Valentine's Day - and we ignore Sweetest Day so completely that most times we're unaware of its approach and departure as time passes.

But all of these days - let's now throw birthdays and Christmas in there, to include all the gift-giving holidays in our house - all of these days have one thing in common.  They can all be counted on to occur the same day, every year, without variation or concern that one year, the special occasion might not happen.  (Except for perhaps the usual fear of global warming, nuclear war, etc. that makes me wonder whether mankind will be around to see the sun come up in the morning.  But I digress.)  It gets old.  It gets predictable.  It gets BORING.  Let's face it, it takes a lot of work to keep a relationship fresh after several years, and we're working on decade number two here.  And then there's the other aspect of having a regularly scheduled event like a birthday or anniversary - when one ends, the anticipation for the next can begin to grow immediately, and with that anticipation, no matter how subconsciously, come expectations.  Unless you're a mind-reader or a master communicator, there's the chance that you're going to somehow miss out on what your partner wants out of the day, and that little bit of sadness can tinge the entire day.

So what do you do?

We came up with an idea that is practical, romantic, and best of all spontaneous.  We call it our Unanniversaries.  There are two separate days for this event, and you'll see why in a bit.

Each year, as close to the end of one year and the beginning of the next as possible, we put 12 slips of paper into a bowl, whereupon we've written the months of the year.  In a separate bowl, we put 31 slips of paper, each with a number from one to 31, representing the days of the month.  We mix them up real good, and then with inordinate silliness and fanfare, we each pick one month and one day out of the respective bowls.

The date that I have just chosen is my wife's Unanniversary, and vice versa.  It now becomes a matter of international security that my wife never ever discovers what date her Unanniversary is on - until that morning.

When that day happens, it becomes my duty to put just as much effort, energy, creativity, money, and preparation into THIS day as I would my actual anniversary.  Wake her with breakfast in bed and a card announcing that "today's the day!"  Send flowers or balloons to her workplace.  Dinner and dancing that night, or maybe a show.  And, of course, gifts and all the affection I can muster.

When the date she picked rolls around, she does the same to me.

But here's the important thing to remember.  While I may have sunk hours and hours of preparation and hundreds of dollars into the execution of the day, she won't have the first clue about it until it happens.  There's no time to expect it.  No time to be ready for being treated like royalty.  And no time to nurture an expectation of what the day should bring.  Sure, there might be a vague "I hope this happens" but ideally it should be on the back burner until it's sprung on you.

And it's flexible too!  If your loved one is going to have to be out of town for business on your anniversary, there's not much you can do about that, except begrudgingly move around your plans and say "Well, it's a week late, but we're still celebrating" while thinking to yourself "It's not the same."  With an Unanniversary you can move your plans around to fit your schedules and since only you know, the effect won't be the same on your partner - to them, it's happening exactly as it's supposed to!  (Same thing happens if the luck of the draw leaves you with February 31st as your date.  No need to redraw from the bowls - just adjust as necessary and go!)

There are a couple things that we've found are vital to this working well.  First, the recipient HAS to be in the dark about their Unanniversary, or it becomes just like another holiday to them.  Second, when you draw from the bowls, keep your slips of paper until you've both selected.  This will minimize the chance that you'll have dates near one another by eliminating the possibility that you can choose the same month.

And you can make whatever embellishment to this you like.  Turn the slips of paper into a joint art project and save them between years in a Ziploc bag.  Laminate them for durability if you like.  Turn the selection of the dates into an event of its own.  Be creative!

Of course, I should say that this isn't a substitute for honest, hard work on your relationship.  If you're having problems, while this might help some, I don't expect it's going to save a failing marriage.  Use this along with whatever you're doing to improve your love life.  And I think you'll see that, like we did, it's a fun, spontaneous tradition that helps us grow stronger and closer.