Alright, so our 36th wedding anniversary was creeping up, and you know how it is, you start thinking about these traditional gifts. I figured, let me check out the gemstone for the 36th. Seemed straightforward enough, right? Well, that’s where my little project began.
I hopped online, typed it in, expecting a clear answer. You know, like diamonds for the 60th, or sapphire for the 45th. Easy peasy. But for the 36th? Man, it was crickets at first. Some lists just skipped right over it. Thirty-fifth, yep, coral. Thirty-seventh, alabaster. But the 36th? Blank space. I thought, “Huh, that’s odd.”
So, I started digging a bit deeper. I thought maybe it was just my first few searches. I looked at different websites, trying to find some consensus. Some older books I have didn’t even mention a specific gemstone for every single year back then, especially for these “in-between” years. It was a real head-scratcher. I spent a good hour just clicking around, getting more confused than when I started.
My “Investigation” into this Gemstone Thing
What I found was a bit of a muddle, to be honest. There isn’t one of those strong, universally agreed-upon traditional gemstones for the 36th anniversary. It’s not like the big milestone years. It seems like back in the day, they didn’t have a specific stone assigned to every single year. So, if you’re looking for that ancient, “this has been the stone for centuries” answer, you might be outta luck for the 36th.
Then you see these “modern” lists. And here’s where it gets even more like “pick your own adventure.” Some might suggest something like “bone china” as the material, which isn’t a gemstone at all! Others throw out names of stones, but there’s no real agreement. I saw one mention “chalcedony,” which is a nice stone, sure, but it didn’t feel like the definitive answer everyone knows.
So, what did I end up doing? Well, my practice here was realizing that for the 36th, it’s less about a specific, dictated gemstone and more about what feels right. Since there’s no hard and fast rule, it kind of opens things up. We decided to focus on something meaningful to us personally, rather than hunting down a specific stone that nobody can quite agree on. It actually took the pressure off! Sometimes, not having a strict tradition is a tradition in itself, I guess. My advice? Don’t sweat it too much for the 36th. Find something you both love, and that’ll be more precious than any “official” stone that isn’t really official.
