Anniversary Sunday

Today my husband woke up with a cough that started yesterday morning just before church.  In spite of that, we had a fun afternoon at my brother's and sister-in-law's house.  My sister came over and joined us for dinner.  Tim and I had run to the grocery store after church to pick up dessert.  We chose Cherry Chocolate Chip ice cream and strawberry cheesecake - without really thinking of the color scheme - ruby.
So when my sister said, "Good colors for today," it struck me that they indeed were good colors for a ruby anniversary dessert!

Then she brought out the presents.  Wow!  I didn't think we'd get presents!  But we did.  There was a basket of small presents wrapped in red tissue paper and a large red box with batteries stuck under red ribbons.

We decided to open the basket presents first, trying to guess what each could be before opening them.  Well, the first was a bottle of barbecue sauce - red, of course.  The next was a can of beets - um, red (Who gets beets for their 40th wedding anniversary besides someone in our family?)  Then a strawberry-rhubarb scented candle - an obvious choice for a red present.  After that came a strawberry-rhubarb jam.  And last, we felt a strangely tapered can inside the red tissue.  We had some trouble guessing that until my sister said sometimes it was pink and sometimes red.  A can of salmon!  Yum!

The box was opened last.  No guessing would have worked for this one.  Our best guess was electronic something, as the batteries attached to the outside by ribbon seemed to cry out "Use us!"

It was a pillow universal remote.  Now when I go to bed with the remote, it can't fall off the bed and pop open the battery compartment.  I will however, have to be careful not to fall asleep on it and change the channels.  It was not red though.  I think they ran out of red remotes.

After dinner and conversation, we went back to church for evening service.  It was followed by a surprise fellowship time with cake and sherbet punch and sandwiches and other wonderful treats supplied by ladies at the church.  I can't tell you how special it felt.  It was just like our wedding reception, only with a mostly new cast of characters.

Our wedding, 40 years ago, was held in a little church in the middle of Maine.  I made my wedding gown and veil.  My bridesmaids made their gowns.  I made candles for the women and myself to carry down the aisle in our evening service.  My husband and I ordered three different size round marble cakes with white frosting from a local bakery. We stacked our cakes largest to smallest, and I decorated them with some yellow frosting I had made.  I hand wrote 100 invitations with rsvp's.  My brother (who is now the pastor of the church I attend) was our very inexpensive (like free) photographer.  The ladies at the church made sandwiches and other hors d'oeuvres, and some punch to serve our guests.

It was a cozy, homespun event, and our celebration this day was another cozy, homespun event.  My favorite!