As you can imagine, there is a funny/awful story to explain this newly learned rule...
For our anniversary a very kind couple at church with kids the same age as ours agreed to watch our kids for an anniversary date. She insisted on at least five hours because the two we had originally asked for was far too short. Very sweet!
Anyway, no more than an hour and a half before our romantic dinner at a fancy restaurant my husband and I were browsing through a local Christmas shop. We came into a room that had a Nutcracker display and my husband asked if I liked Nutcrackers.
"I know your family has a collection so I assume you like them but actually I find them a little creepy," I replied.
His face blanched so I hurried to explain so as not to offend him, "I think it is just because of the show, The Nutcracker. You see, I watched the movie when I was a little girl and hated it so I really think that is why I dislike Nutcrackers so much."
He had an peculiar little smile on his face and wouldn't say a word further on the subject. I thought it odd but figured my view on Nutcrackers wasn't that important and didn't worry about it any further.
Until we got to the fancy restaurant...
At our table, waiting for me, sat an envelope, a jewelry box, and a very large, very nice Nutcracker!
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| That is him. |
My husband's face once again wore that little smile but, again, he didn't say a word.
In the box was a beautiful wedding/engagement ring for me to replace the one he had lost a few months previously. (A quick aside* My old one was cracked and he had taken it on the sly to get it fixed and had lost it in the process!!)
And in the envelope was the sweetest card in the world and two tickets to see the Moscow Ballet perform The Nutcracker!!!! It was very thoughtful and, if I hadn't so idiotically given a previously unvoiced opinion, I would have been properly thrilled and he would have never known of my dislike of Nutcrackers (until maybe anniversary number 30!).
Instead, my husband looked at me and asked, "How much do Nutcrackers creep you out?"
The following days he was sweetly insistent that we didn't need to go to the show. That he couldn't believe that he hadn't known that about me and we could throw the tickets away. The night of the performance he offered to scalp them because he didn't want to make me sit through something I would hate. His favourite classical composer is Tchaikovsky so I knew he would enjoy listening to the music and didn't want him not to be able to enjoy that... We were at an impasse.
Finally, my wonderful, selfless husband came up with a wonderful plan... We would give our tickets to Esther and her husband who were visiting. They had changed their plans and agreed to stay another day to watch our kids so we could go to the show and that was just so sweet of them. Besides it reminded us of when we were first married and my boss at the time had given us practically front row tickets he couldn't use to see Wagner's opera, Valkyrie, and we had enjoyed it so much - we were thrilled to be able to do something similar for them. (I'll have have to see if she will write about it for one of her posts. From what she told me I should have taken into account that the Moscow Ballet was performing and, of course, it would phenomenal!!)
The best anniversary gift my husband could give me was being selfless enough to give up our rather pricy tickets to a sweet, young couple and stay home and babysit their kid as his anniversary gift to me and in the process we got a story that we will remember much longer than any show.
Nevertheless, I will take greater care in the future never to give a new opinion on the day of an anniversary!
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