A milestone worth celebrating
39th Anniversary Gifts
Hallmark’s theme for the thirty-ninth anniversary is laughter, and modern gift lists suggest lace.
Celebrate the love behind the milestone with a real rose preserved in 24K gold, a lasting keepsake of thirty-nine years together.
The meaning behind your year
Gift ideas
Laughter, Lace and Agate: Six Anniversary Gift Ideas
A few traditional, a few practical, and all of them better with a note attached.
Tickets to a comedy festival
Hallmark suggests passes to a comedy club or festival. The Melbourne International Comedy Festival, first held in 1987, runs for about four weeks from late March, with the Melbourne Town Hall as its hub.
The comedy from your early dates
Hallmark’s simplest idea is a date at a funny film. Better still, track down the comedy you saw when you were first going out and watch it again on the couch, with the same snacks if you can remember them.
A sign only you two understand
Hallmark suggests a funny sign or poster that suits them perfectly. Have a family saying or a long-running in-joke painted on a sign for the kitchen or the shed, and enjoy explaining it to visitors.
Family lace, back on the table
If there’s lace in the family, a veil, a christening gown or your mother’s best tablecloth, have it gently cleaned by a textile conservator. Then use it for the anniversary dinner instead of leaving it in the drawer.
A bobbin lace class for two
Bobbin lace is made by twisting threads, wound on small bobbins, around pins on a firm pillow. Look for a beginners’ class through a lace or craft guild, and laugh at your first attempts together.
Agate bookends
Agate forms in bands that nobody has managed to reproduce in a laboratory. Queensland has its own, often green or yellow-green, formed in ancient lava flows, and a polished pair makes handsome bookends for the shelf.
The 24K gold-dipped rose
A gold rose to celebrate thirty-nine years together
A genuine rose preserved and finished in 24 karat gold over 60 steps and many months, then polished by hand. Each rose retains its individual shape and character, so no two are exactly alike—a lasting reminder of your first thirty-nine years together.
- Includes a certificate of authenticity
- Presented in a luxurious display case, inside a gloss white gift box bearing our debossed gold leaf logo
- A timeless symbol of love, preserved to keep forever
- Rose approximately 29 cm long; display case 34 cm long
What the 39th means
Why laughter
for thirty-nine years?
Laughter is Hallmark’s theme for a thirty-ninth wedding anniversary, and lace is the gift on modern lists. After thirty-nine years, the jokes only the two of you understand are well worth celebrating.
Why laughter
The year with a joke built in
Thirty-nine has been a punchline for a long time. The American comedian Jack Benny claimed to be 39 for the rest of his life, so this is the one anniversary that comes with a joke ready-made.
By now most of your funny stories are shared ones: the wedding-day mishap, the camping trip that went wrong, the thing one of the kids said at Christmas dinner. Telling them again, just to each other, is a fine way to mark the year.
Where it began
Lace on the move
Lace hasn’t stayed put on the anniversary lists. Hallmark gives it to the thirteenth, as do German lists, which call that year the Spitzenhochzeit, the lace wedding, while the modern lists gathered by Te Ara give lace to both the thirteenth and the thirty-ninth.
Early lace was expensive, worn mainly by the wealthy. When Queen Victoria married in 1840 in a dress of Honiton lace, made in Devon, brides took note, and lace has been part of wedding dresses ever since.
Around the world
Crepe, sunshine and agate
German lists call the thirty-ninth the Krepphochzeit, the crepe wedding, after the crinkled fabric, or the much sunnier Sonnenhochzeit, the sun wedding. French lists also choose crepe: the noces de crêpe.
Spanish lists give agate, the bodas de ágata. Dutch, Italian and Japanese lists skip the year altogether and save themselves for the ruby wedding twelve months later.
39th anniversary symbols
Laughter, agate and coreopsis
Laughter or lace
Neither is an old tradition. Hallmark’s theme is laughter and modern gift lists give lace, so a lace-edged hanky with a terrible joke stitched in the corner covers both.
Agate
GIA’s anniversary gemstone lists skip the 39th, but agate, from the Spanish list, fills the gap well. Its name is often traced to the river Achates in Sicily, though some think the river was named after the stone. It rates 6.5 to 7 on the Mohs scale.
Coreopsis
There’s no official 39th anniversary flower. For a year about laughter, try coreopsis, which in Victorian flower language meant ‘always cheerful’, a fair description of anyone who has laughed at the same jokes for thirty-nine years.
Celebrating the 39th
Make a little time for the two of you
Walk the beach where you spent your honeymoon, let the grandchildren bury you both in sand, or book lunch at the pub where you had your first drink together. Thirty-nine years gives you plenty to remember, and a good reason to make time for each other.
Since the thirty-ninth is the crepe wedding in France and Germany, borrow the pun: make a stack of crêpes for a late breakfast together, and keep score of who flips them best.
Then hide a card under the plate with one line that’s guaranteed to make them laugh.
More romantic anniversary ideasWhat the 39th means to others
Letters that capture thirty-nine years
Thirty-nine years in, you’ve heard each other’s jokes so often you could tell them better than the original. A letter is the place to admit they still make you laugh. Here are three to borrow from, and three real stories about laughter and lace.
Letters to inspire your own
We wrote these as examples. Borrow any line you like.
Dear Bruce,
You have told the same joke about the plumber and the parrot at every family Christmas since 1987. I have laughed every single time. Some years it was at the joke and some years it was at you, and you’ve never been able to tell the difference.
When the kids were small and money was tight, you could turn a flat tyre on the Hume into an adventure. When the house flooded in ’98, you were the one who had everyone laughing over takeaway in a motel room. I don’t think I ever told you how much that mattered.
Happy thirty-ninth. I’ve booked us a table at the pub trivia night, and you’re in charge of the music round.
All my love,
Kaye
Dear Linh,
At our wedding the celebrant’s dog wandered in during the vows and sat on your train. You got the giggles so badly that I nearly said ‘I do’ for both of us. Your mother has never forgiven the dog.
Thirty-nine years later you still laugh louder than anyone in the cinema, and people still turn around to look. I love it. I’ve always loved it.
When I lost my job in 2009, you had business cards made that said ‘Head of Household Operations’. One is still in my wallet, and I still hand it out.
Happy anniversary. Thank you for every laugh, especially the ones at my expense.
Love,
Steve
To us, at thirty-nine,
One year until the ruby wedding, so here’s the list. Learn the rules of whatever card game the grandkids keep beating us at. Fix the side gate properly, not with the bit of wire. Finally go to Rottnest and ride the bikes we keep talking about.
Dance in the kitchen at least once a month, music optional. Stop pretending we can read the menu without our glasses.
And keep laughing at the same old stories, because they’re ours, and nobody else would put up with them.
Love,
Us, one year off ruby
Worth reading
Real stories and finds about the thirty-nine-year mark. Links open in a new tab.
When Sandra Maloney married Christopher Wauchope in Port Lincoln in February 1990, the couple chose the 39th wedding anniversary of his parents, Archie and May Wauchope of Murray Town, as their wedding day. The bride’s satin gown had a lace overlay and a tulle and lace frill, with pearls at the neckline and a pearl-studded veil. Her mother made the cake, the bride iced it herself, and the newlyweds left for a honeymoon on Kangaroo Island before setting up home in Broken Hill.
In 1910, lace belonged to the thirty-fifth anniversary, and this American etiquette book went all out. It suggests lace draped over the mantel and mirror, lace shades on the lamps, invitations written on lace-edged handkerchiefs and guests in powdered wigs as French courtiers. Paper lace doilies are allowed if the real thing runs short.
Greater Good, from the University of California, Berkeley, explains psychologist Sara Algoe’s research on laughing together. Laughing at the same thing, rather than one person laughing alone, went with closer and more satisfying relationships, and Algoe suggests sharing a laugh before tackling a tricky conversation. A useful read for anyone heading into a thirty-ninth.
39th anniversary FAQ
