Here Comes Number Five!

Usually I’m really good about gifts and figuring things out for people ahead of time. Right now, I’m stumped. In six days, it will be my fifth anniversary, and I have no idea what to get my husband.

When we got married, my wedding present to him was a year’s membership to a baseball academy where he could go hit whenever he wanted, got 10 lessons on hitting, etc and also six lessons that worked on visual acuity. He loved it, and the whole thing was a great hit.

For our first anniversary, the gifts are supposed to be either paper or clocks. Surprisingly, I went paper. I cheated a little bit, and my paper was tickets, but I took him on a trip that involved an out of state baseball game, which was really cool.

The second anniversary’s gifts are cotton or china. Yep, I went cotton. I found an old time authentic St Louis Cardinals jersey that my husband treasured. Three guesses where he grew up!

The third anniversary was harder, as I had to choose between leather and crystal or glass. I chose leather, which meant a new baseball glove and cleats (anyone sensing a theme here?), as well as all the other baseball type goodies like a new bat and socks. Before then, I had no idea how expensive bats were as I hadn't purchased one since high school!

I had to get really creative for the fourth anniversary, but it worked out well. It was supposed to be fruit or flowers or appliances. Now that was a tough one to choose between. I finally decided that if I got something that went into an appliance, that was close enough. I got him a beer making session where he got to go make his own brew and then bottle it. He thought that was the coolest thing ever, especially when he made his own labels (Cardinal Schorr) for the bottles that were individual images of the guys on his baseball team batting in a game.

Needless to say, I have a lot to live up to at this point. And I’m stumped. For the fifth anniversary, it’s wood or silverware.

I was thinking that I could do a wooden bat for him, as his league is now having three games that are wood bat games this year. The whole team is protesting, given that wooden bats aren’t cheap and tend to break frequently, especially when used by a bunch of guys who play baseball for fun and don’t really know how to use them. That idea got scratched.

I started searching for a gift a few months ago:

The I Love You Photo Cube? Nope.

A tree? Well, we are redoing all our landscaping, but that had nothing to do with our anniversary.

I thought seriously for awhile about the personalized pub sign for our game room downstairs, but that seems like too much of a reach.

A wooden dresser valet? Unfortunately, my husband wouldn’t know what a dresser valet was, nor would he use one.

Then I thought maybe a foosball table for our game room, but now that my pinball machine is finally repaired and in its rightful place – more on that in a few days – the game room is really pretty full.

I think my best idea is to go with the paper comes from wood idea and make him a booklet of gifts: I’m not allowed to be crabby, a get out of trouble free, I’ll get up with the kids in the middle of the night, date night of all his choosing, etc. I’ve done something similar in the past, which makes me a bit loathe to do this one.

My only other somewhat viable thought was to maybe get a little wooden table that works for picnics where you’re sitting on the ground, a bottle of wine we like and tickets to Ravinia.

Ugh! Anyone have any ideas?

My husband has actually suggested replacing our kitchen table and chairs as our anniversary gift. Granted, they’re the same set I purchased when I graduated college X years ago, but they’re perfectly functional. Plus, I want to remodel our kitchen for a number of reasons but can’t do it until the appliances go since I want to move the appliances around and that means I need to know what size they’ll be then, which means I can’t really get rid of the kitchen furniture since I don’t know what will or won’t fit…. He of course doesn’t get that at all and just wants a new kitchen table and chairs.