How to Celebrate Your Fifth Year Wedding Anniversary
You’ve made it through five years together, hopefully each year a bit better than the last.
You’ve built a home and a life.
Now it’s time to celebrate!
Wood is traditionally given on the fifth anniversary, and the modern gift is silverware.
The fifth anniversary colors are blue, pink and turquoise, with the stone being a sapphire.
Certainly, this gives you a lot of options!
Wouldn’t it be nice to tailor your gift-giving to your partner’s specific needs, however?
About 10 years ago, Dr. Gary Chapman came up with the notion that people experience love in unique ways.
We have different life experiences and various ways of being in the world, so this would make sense.
Some people feel love quite deeply when they receive gifts, but others need something else.
Dr. Chapman called these preferences “love languages,” and now there are online tests you can take with your spouse to determine which languages belong to each of you.
Time to get creative!
Here is a list of meaningful things you can do and gifts you can give to celebrate your fifth wedding anniversary, following the traditional theme of wood.
Give the gift of music
If you or your partner have “gift-giving” as your language of love and you want to follow the traditional fifth-year theme, you could give a wooden music instrument and perhaps some lessons, either in-person or online.
Even an accordion is made of wood, and if your partner already plays the piano, an accordion would be relatively easy to learn.
Adding music in your home can only enhance it, and may even give you a new activity to do together.
Facilitate acts of service
If your partner experiences love best through acts of service, take a quick look around your house for wooden items that might need care.
You need to consistently oil cutting boards and wooden cabinets.
It’s easy to let these routines slip, which can leave the wood cracked.
Alternately, if you have wooden floors in your house, you might wash or wax them – this nourishes the house that you have created together.
Perhaps add a few drops of lemon or cedar essential oil to the water, to give your home a lovely smell.
And if you have a fireplace or woodstove, think about helping to replenish your stack of cut wood.
Give them a beautiful wooden box
If your partner needs words of affirmation to feel loved, consider writing them notes and putting them into a beautiful wooden box.
You could even create a new tradition: every time you notice or appreciate something about your spouse, you add the sentiment to the box.
At certain times during the year, you open the box and read the notes together.
At the end of each year, but the notes into a scrapbook – freeing the box for another year’s worth of lovely thoughts.
It’s so easy to get stuck in the minute details of daily life, but practicing gratitude can help reset your brain and teach you to focus on the positive aspects of your relationship.
Take time to plan for a massage together
If your partner’s love language is physical touch, a wooden massage tool would be a wonderful gift.
Find out what your partner has going on and ask him or her to clear out a few hours.
Make sure the room is warm enough and that it smells pleasant, but that the scent is not overpowering.
Make sure you have a high-quality massage oil.
Then get a book or watch an instructional video to get some new ideas.
The massage roller will give your hands a break when you need them, allowing your partner to relax in uninterrupted bliss.
Engage in romantic activities
If your partner feels most loved when you spend quality time together, perhaps you could learn a craft together that is centered around wood.
This could be something like carving, for example, or woodworking. You could watch a video explaining how to build something simple, such as a birdhouse.
You could also spend an afternoon in nature carving or whittling alongside each other.
And if you are lucky enough to live near a forest, you might enjoy a nice, leisurely walk through the woods together, holding hands.
This will be even more romantic if the forest is full of evergreens and your anniversary falls during the winter.
If you’re not distracted and it’s quite still, you may notice that the trees appear to be in groupings – almost in relationship with each other. Research shows that the trees communicate via a hidden network of mycelium, which passes electrical signals between them.
You might want to stand between those trees and be grateful for the many unspoken forms of communication and bonding that you have created with your spouse.
Take time to look into your husband’s or wife’s eyes and express this, while standing underneath all those beautiful trees.
Remember, five years together is significant.
It’s half a decade, and your life is certainly richer now than it was before you met your husband or wife.
Celebrate your love.
Go kiss under some trees.
