LifeWay Marriage Blog

Whatever the area of achievement, many people think you really haven’t celebrated unless you find yourself spending tons of money. The logic seems to go like this: the more money spent, the truer the fact is that you have “really celebrated”.

As a married couple, there will be many different accomplishments either of you two together – or each of you – will experience. It is important to celebrate all of them. How you celebrate may differ greatly, but celebrate you must.

We were just married and in school so you can imagine how much money we had. I like to say that we were so poor, we couldn’t pay anything – we couldn’t even pay attention!

But we celebrated the events of life often and having to do it inexpensively didn’t diminish the quality or excitement for us. Our celebrative spirit was not dependent on the amount of money we spent. We just wanted to acknowledge that something had been accomplished and it was time to party.

Whether it’s because of finances or frequency, sometimes you gotta celebrate cheap – and there’s nothing wrong with that. So here are FIVE WAYS TO CELEBRATE “WHATEVER” IN YOUR MARRIAGE UNDER $10.00: 

1.  Dessert date in the living room floor. One of my favs. A great time, after the kids are in bed, to share together – maybe celebrating the simple fact that you’ve made it through another day with two kids under 5!
2. Candlelight dinner at home. (Yeah, you’re right. This one could possibly exceed 10 bucks.) What can make this special is preparing your favorite home-cooked meal. That’s assuming, of course, you have discussed what that meal is. Talk about it. Pizza or pot roast – it doesn’t matter – just do it.
3. Buy a blank greeting card and articulate in your own words how proud you are of him/her. One Thanksgiving Eve I placed such a card under my wife Selma’s pillow. My parents were visiting and Selma had worked so hard getting ready for them. In the card I said “thank-you” and also told her we were already in celebration mode. Regardless of how T-Day turned out, it was already worth celebrating because of the love she had shown through her work. (She was impressed!)
4. Bring home your mate’s favorite flower. Just one … with your own brief speech to say you recognize her accomplishment.
5. Rent the movie. Sure it’ll take a couple of hours but setting aside the time to watch your marriage team’s favorite  movie can be just what you need to remember another celebration moment for you two.

A final word of caution: be careful how you celebrate. Years ago, Selma had finally gotten a job after searching for NINE MONTHS in our new city. We “celebrated” that night she got hired and it turned otu to be one of the most expensive celebrations we ever had. NINE MONTHS later our first was born. We had previously decided together that she would stay at home for a while if/when we had kids, so her job lasted NINE MONTHS.

We had plenty of other things to celebrate – and still do – following that “short job” celebration.