As of today, Sara and I have been married for three years, and it has certainly been an amazing three years.Sara likes to say she feels like we've been married twenty years in just a short amount of time. One of the things we try to do in our marriage is to create traditions, which are sort of intentional and happenstance at the same time.
A new anniversary tradition is currently emerging in what we are calling our "Anniversary Week". It all started when I bought flowers this past weekend as a kick-off to the week. Next, a friend of ours offered to watch our daughter for a date night last Saturday. We rode a tandem bike along the beach and ate dinner at an outdoor restaurant.
This week, we don't have much time for anniversary items, and in fact, Sara plays volleyball tonight on our official anniversary. A card and gift are in order tonight, but nothing else. To cap off the week, our friends will watch our daughter on Saturday night while we see a play, which is something we love to do.
All of the items on this week's agenda sort of happened randomly, but the point in creating traditions is to use these somewhat random series of events translate into traditions for the years to come. Thus, for Sara and I, we will probably continue to practice an Anniversary Week celebration each year instead of only the anniversary itself. This process can work with many other kinds of traditions throughout the year. Turn somewhat random events into traditions.
(photo taken from flickr creative commons by Joe Lanman)