April’s arrival heralded many things — spring showers (check, although admittedly they began in late March), Tax Day (check) and my husband’s birthday (April 24).

It’s not for me to reveal his age, but he’s younger than me. If you know my age, this might give you a hint. If not, perhaps you might get the impression that my husband is a stud who married an older woman. Actually, we’re only six months apart, so other than education and our actual birth years, we are essentially on the same time line ( (and my husband messed up his educational timeline, but that’s another story).

This year, we are still young and fabulous, but broke. We hope we will always be fabulous, try to stay young — at least young at heart — but hope that the broke adjective doesn’t follow us around forever. Of course, I exagerate, but we do expect that gifts will be more modest this year than previously.

Accordingly, here is a trip down memory lane when we were more flush…
For our fifth wedding anniversary, I bought my husband a collection of seven wines as Bordeaux Futures from the famed 2000 vintage. At the time, the wine was still in oak barrels, so it was perfect as wood is the traditional gift for a fifth anniversary. The wines were delivered in Summer 2002 and have been in our cellar since then. These are wines to be aged, so they will likely remain undisturbed for several more years.

For another birthday, I bought my husband three wines from vintages that were special to us — his birth year, our wedding year and the year we met. Choosing these wines was a lot of fun, but took work as I needed to research which wines had done well in those vintages and were still showing well. In the end, he received a bottle of Chateau Montrose from Bordeaux (yes, we do have a continued love affair with Bordeaux), a bottle of Chateau Climens (a botrytized dessert wine also from Bordeaux) and a bottle of Aldo Conterno Barolo Bussia (from the Piedmont region of Italy; bet you thought I was going to say Bordeaux again!).

And, about two years ago, I bought him a ticket to a Bourbon and Cheese tasting class at Artisanal. He loves Bourbon and almost never met a cheese he didn’t at least like, so it was a match made in heaven. He had a great time at the class and was his first forray into cheese education, which he later followed up with Murray’s Cheese’s boot-camp — 15 hours of cheese education over three days. Not surprisingly, we have added the moniker, Cheese Wiz, to his list of titles.

With only two days left to go, this year’s actual gift has yet to be determined, but, as long as we’re together to celebrate, it’s good enough for me. As the birthday boy, he may disagree if he walks away empty-handed. Guess, I’d better get shopping.