The 18 Reasons Why 2012 Was The Best Year Ever

Without question, 2012 was the greatest year of my life. And, well, our lives. Bridget and I became "The Briddons" in March and it's been nine months of growing closer. That's not to say we both aren't the same independent (and very different) people we were in 2011, but most sentences now begin with "We." So, in looking back on 2012, here are the 18 things that made it our best 366 days ever:

1. We celebrated five wonderful weddings -- including our own -- with friends and family. We may be biased, but we think ours was the best.
2. We never have to deal with the stress of planning our wedding again.
3. We ran a half marathon.
4. We're healthy.
5. We -- and Oscar -- survived the great hambone disaster of 2012. (In short, my mom, excitedly gave Oscar a hambone, which he excitedly devoured. We all smiled and laughed. Then we realized dogs are never, ever supposed to eat cooked bones. It was a tough and fairly disgusting couple weeks.)
6. We locked up our love on the Seine River in Paris.
7. We stayed in the nicest hotel room ever in Enniskery, Ireland. There was a damn TV in the bathroom mirror. In the mirror!
8. We enjoyed a week of paradise -- and ate about eight pounds of ribs and sushi -- in sunny Mexico.
9. We sat on a riverbank on a glorious sunny day in Breckenridge, Colorado, which, for my money, is the nicest town in the United States.
10. We bought a leather couch. (Weeks ago, Bridget and I decided it was best to wait until next Christmas to make the purchase. So, naturally, I'm staring at it in our living room right now.)
11. We saw the Lumineers, The Head and The Heart, Bon Iver, and Ben Harper -- four of the best concerts in recent memory.
12. We won the New Yorker Caption Contest. (One of the coolest things about this was when the guy at the framing store let out an unsolicited laugh when we brought it in.)
13. We went to a San Francisco Giants game, a Red Sox game, a Patriots game, and a Celtics playoff game. (Mike went to the Celtics game, but, you know, the whole our thing.)
14. We booked our one-year anniversary weekend at the Chatham Bars Inn. 
15. We went to Cambridge, 1 and West Side Lounge a whole bunch of times.
16. We got a MacBook Air and an iMac. (We really, really like Apple products.)
17. We started a blog. This is our 42nd post.
18. We were fortunate enough to do the first 17 things.

We only hope that 2013 can somehow rival 2012. It's a tall order, but if Kanye and Kim Kardashian can make it, hell, anything is possible. Happy New Year, everyone!

The Futility of Spending Limits at Christmas

This is the third Christmas Bridget and I have spent together. And every year, the same question gets tossed around starting in early November: How much should we spend on each other this year?

In our three yuletide seasons, I've learned two very important things:
1. We are great at setting spending limits.
2. We are absolutely horrible at sticking to spending limits.

Now, we always have the best intentions. And we're both fairly resourceful and careful with our cash. But for whatever reason, we really, really suck at this.

Take last year, for example. We set our limit at $200, which seems completely reasonable for a couple. Think of all the great stuff you can get for $200! A little weekend getaway in the winter. Lots of nice, warm, stylish clothes. Tickets to a Celtics game or a concert. There are plenty of options. So, of course, we went with diamond earrings and a vacation to Ireland. The trip, obviously, was way more than $200. And so were the earrings -- that is, until Bridget finds out they are cubic zirconia.

This Christmas, the same thing has happened. Realizing that we took several big trips this year and, you know, got married, we were going to take it easy to the tune of a $100 limit. And we really tried. At least I know I did. I spent a lot of time thinking about it. I looked around online for hours. Heck, I even went to a couple brick-and-mortar stores. (Imagine!) In a nutshell, I failed. Miserably. And while I haven't unwrapped her gift to me, I know she failed miserably, too.

This all leads me to a simple question: Why? Is it because we are greedy people who love material things? No. Is it because, as my friend Jesse said the other day, you really can't buy anything for 100 bucks nowadays? Maybe. Is it because this is the last year we're going to have extra disposable cash? That could be it. (Read: Mothers, Bridget is not pregnant. I repeat: Not pregnant. We're just assuming life will be much different next year. Again, not pregnant.) But I think the real reason is -- and get ready for the corny line here -- we're really, really in love. Getting a gift that is "good enough" just isn't good enough. We both feel the need to go above and beyond.

Will there be years when we can't go nuts with gifts? Probably. Will someone need braces or money for a hospital bill or a college education? Most likely. But those years, when we actually stick to a limit, we'll look back at these years and smile. And then probably find a way to break the limit again.

The (Stupid) Top of the Wedding Cake

From the title of this post, it's pretty easy to see where I'm going here. I also considered going with "I Want My Damn Freezer Back," but that didn't seem to be descriptive enough.

No matter how you say it, the tradition of keeping the top of the wedding cake until your first anniversary is silly. It needs to be retired immediately. No, yesterday. Or maybe even a year ago so I wouldn't be stuck angrily fitting things into our tiny freezer every Sunday for the last eight months.

Like many couples, we saved the top tier of our cake after our wedding in March. Covered in wrapping, foil, and probably like a veil or something girly, it has dominated the freezer space ever since. And every time I go in there to put away some ice cream, chicken wings, frozen dinners, or freeze pops, it taunts me. "Ha," it says. "I'm huge and annoying, and you can't get rid of me."

I've pleaded with Bridget several times to do something about this:
Me: "Hey, this cake thing is dumb. What if we just save one piece and share that?"
Bridget: "No."
Me: "Why not? It's not going to taste good anyway. It's going to be gross."
Bridget: "Because it's tradition and it will make me happy."

End of conversation.

The "make me happy" argument will get me every time. But tradition? Come on. What does that even mean? I decided to look it up and, on the Bridal Guide website, I found this:

Origin: To understand this tradition, you just have to think back to a familiar schoolyard rhyme: “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage!” It used to be thought that once a wedding took place, a baby was going to come shortly after, so therefore the wedding and christening ceremonies were often linked, as were the respective cakes that were baked for each occasion. With fancy, elaborate, multi-tiered wedding cakes becoming a major trend in the 19th century, the christening cake began to take a back seat to the wedding cake. Since the top tier of the wedding cake was almost always left over, couples began to see the christening as the perfect opportunity to finish the cake. Couples could then logically rationalize the need for three tiers — the bottom for the reception, the middle for distributing, and the top for the christening.

Today: As the time between weddings and christenings widened, the two events became disassociated and the reason for saving the top tier changed. Now, couples enjoy saving the top layer of their wedding cake to eat on their first anniversary as a pleasant reminder of their special day.

"As a pleasant reminder of their special day?" Seriously? What are the pictures for? Plus, it's only a year. If you forget your wedding day after a year, you probably have bigger problems than the top of a cake.

Sure, when March 31, 2013, rolls around, I'll take a (small) bite. And yes, it will be nice celebrating one year of marriage. But mostly, I'll celebrate the return of space in my icebox.

Thanks for Nothing, Happy Endings

There's only a certain amount of time in every day. Between work, eating, working out, Oscar time, iPad time (which is sacred!), and sleeping, Bridget and I are left with about 30 minutes each night. And, often, to unwind, we like to fill those 30 minutes with a little mutual TV.

What's mutual TV? It's TV time that couples share. For us, that means it's not Syracuse basketball. It's not The Real Housewives of Ann Arbor or whatever stupid city they're in now. It's TV that we both like. By definition, then, it's also TV that's hard to find. So as you can imagine, trying to find mutual TV is like trying to find penguins in Mexico. Here is our short list of successes:

• Parks and Recreation. Best comedy on TV. Everything else is a distant second.
• New Girl. Pretty good, but not great. Without Schmidt, it would likely be off the list.
• Friday Night Lights. Loved it. Amazing. But, sadly, it's over.
• The Newsroom. Compelling TV, but we've done away with HBO.
• Downton Abbey. Fantastic show, but on once every three years or something.
• The League. Hit or miss, to be honest, but the hits are pretty fantastic.

That's it. Six shows. And that's why Bridget and I were so excited to find Happy Endings last year. The show had everything -- good writing, lots of humor, a fun cast, and attractive female stars. (Truth be told, I'm a huge Elisha Cuthbert fan. I have been since 24. The way she ran through the woods when that bad guy was chasing her. And then The Girl Next Door. Good God. But I digress.) It was a show that, as 30-somethings, meant something to us and spoke to us in a way that PBS and MTV do not.

But then this season came. And now Happy Endings is both awful and terrible.

Whatever, Elisha, it's true. Your show has become predictable, boring, and forced. It's poorly acted. The writing is garbage. And last week I read a story about how the cast is full of jerks. So thanks for nothing, Happy Endings. You've become part of our TV Cemetary. Say hi to The Office, Cougar Town, Community, and Two and a Half Men. (Just kidding. No one ever watches Two and a Half Men.)

So if you have suggestions for the winter, we'd love to hear them. Is there some hidden gem on NBC? A diamond in the rough on AMC? Mutual TV is in need of some help.

The Most Important Purchase We've Ever Made

It's a picture of nothing, right? Mike forgot to take his finger off the lens because he's old and he doesn't understand technology, right? Wrong.

This picture -- this ugly, ugly picture -- of a brown curtain may not mean much to you. But the curtain in the photo has changed my life in ways I could never have imagined.

As you may know, Bridget and I buy a decent amount of things. (We are, actually, quite conservative when it comes to cash, but that's a story for another time.) We took three honeymoons. (Not really, but that's what our friends like to say.) We like our iPads. (Bridget has a somewhat unnatural affinity for hers.) And our wonderful kitchen island has been well documented.

But above all these things, above all these wonderful items and memories, one purchase stands above the rest. Three words: Room darkening curtains. Cost: $60. Place of purchase: T.J.Maxx.

Until about two months ago, I had never heard of room darkening curtains. My guess is most guys haven't. We don't really think about those things. At all. Ever. We mostly think about sports and food and beer and video games and women -- not necessarily in that order. So when Bridget asked me if I thought we should get room darkening curtains, I looked at her like she'd asked if I prefer a shirt with vertical stripes or horizontal stripes. (Read: I didn't care one bit.) I believe my response was, "What the hell are those and how much are they?"

In classic, calm Bridget style, she explained that they were curtains that made a room darker and that they'd help us sleep better. "Sure," I said, "I like sleep. Go for it."

And from the moment they've gone up, it's been a whole new world. We get at least an extra hour of sleep every morning -- and sometimes more. (And really, is there anything more valuable than a good night's sleep?) The curtains do an amazing job of making it always seem like it's 3 AM even if it's 9. (Here's an awkward customer video if you want to see the curtains in action.) They fool Oscar, too, which is probably the most important thing. With little to no light shining in, he's content to just lay on the bed until we decide to wake up.

So, yes, the curtains are another example of my brilliant wife strutting her shopping stuff. But as I thought about this post, it quickly came to me that the curtains are just an example of something larger -- that it's important to marry someone who has a different perspective on money.

I was chatting with a financially conservative friend at a bar last night. We traded stories about stretching dollars and denying ourselves life's pleasures. And, sure, there's a time for that. It's nice to have savings. But it's also pretty nice to sleep well and, in the words of Tom Haverford: Treat. Yo. Self. Said a different way, I would never, ever have paid $60 for curtains. (I used to think curtains came with apartments. They don't.) But I'm really, really lucky to have such a smart wife.

The Trouble With Bedtime

The first disagreement Mike and I ever had was about bedtime. Mike took that position that going to bed at the same time was romantic. He said he liked everyone to be all tucked in and tuckered out at the same time (I'm clearly paraphrasing here. I don't believe he has ever used the phrase "tuckered out." Thank gawd.). At the time of this bold declaration, I was a devout night owl.  When no one is around to tell me to go to bed, I'll likely be found passed out on the couch, makeup smeared across my face, teeth unbrushed, with half a sandwich hanging out of my mouth. So I reacted badly to this idea of forced bedtime. Especially since Mike is an early-to-bed-early-to-rise-take-an-agressive-mid-afternoon-nap kinda guy. Mike is sensible. Mike always brushes his teeth before bed. Mike always goes to bed at a reasonable hour.

After much initial protest, I ultimately decided to try things Mike's way for a bit. And it turns out, it is actually really nice to get eight hours of sleep. I never knew I could feel so rested! So alive! I even liked turning in early and reading our Kindles together until we fell asleep (barf, I know).

But then something came along to ruin this domestic bliss. And that something is the iPad.

Lately, I'll more likely than not be found curled on the couch with my iPad, gleefully tapping away at its shiny screen until the wee hours. What am I doing, you (and Mike) may ask? Oh, you know, the usual. Going to various retailer websites and playing the, "I'm independently wealthy and can buy anything I want" game. (This game involves perusing said retailer's site for hours and putting all the things I would like into my shopping cart....with NO regard for price!! Shocking, I know. Let me be clear, I don't actually buy anything. That is not part of the game. Simply looking at my full cart with things I can't afford is somehow pleasure enough. I may have a problem. )

I can also be found perusing various blogs. Some about house tweaking, others about celebrities. I'll check all my bank and credit card accounts, mint.com and loans. Just to be sure they are all still there. I'll check the news. I'll check Facebook about a million times just in case someone posts something interesting (spoiler alert, no one does).  I'll also check email incessantly just in case I get some good spam. Then I'll move to sites like RueLaLa.com, Gilt.com, and OneKingsLane.com to look at all the things I really shouldn't buy.

But the majority of my time is spent reading magazines. I subscribe to this wondrous and magical thing called Next Issue. Next Issue is an app that allows me to read virtually every magazine worth reading (and many that are not - I'm looking at you, Wood magazine) for one monthly fee. Something like 60+ magazines. All at my fingertips. It almost makes my head explode. I've died and gone to magazine heaven.

Long story short, I spend a lot of time on my iPad. And it is getting harder and harder to turn in early when I still have 55 magazines left to read. This makes Mike sad, not only because he likes us falling asleep together, but more importantly, when he goes to bed before me there is no one there to catch his Kindle when he falls asleep with it against his face. This is my designated job (seriously, I have to do it. I wrote it into my vows.)

But after too many nights with my iPad and with Oscar distraught because he can't handle when the two of us are in separate rooms, I start to miss my husband. Because that time before bed when we disconnect from the world and read together is that kind of elusive quality time that you don't appreciate until you start to miss it. And I miss it. So tonight, I'm putting away the iPad.

Earning The Title of 'Our Place'

Bridget and I went on a date Thursday night. We do that every month or so -- pick a restaurant (sometimes a reliable standby, sometimes a new place), order wonderful food, drink delicious beer and wine, and then vow never to eat again because we're too full. (Somehow Bridget always has room for BerryLine or whatever that weird frozen yogurt place is called. It's like crack to women for some reason.)

We're fortunate to live in Cambridge, where unique and creative restaurants are literally around every corner. French, Italian, Thai, Chinese, American ... you name it, we have it. But of all the places we've been, none compare to West Side Lounge, this amazing, little eatery on Mass Ave. Every time we walk in the door, we have the best intentions to try something new, something a little bit different. Invariably, she gets salmon and I get parmesan-crusted cod, which honestly makes my mouth water as I type it. It's that damn good. Hers, from what I hear, is fairly surreal, too.

We had our engagement dinner here, we've Yelped about it, we've taken friends and family there. It is, officially, "Our Place."

This concept of "Our Place" made me think. Every couple has at least one. But what gives something that enviable title? What is it about West Side Lounge that I (and we) like it so much that I'll defend it like my mother? (Just kidding, mom. But seriously, the food is really good. You know. You've been there.)

Is it the food? That's definitely part of it. The food is amazing -- from appetizers to desserts. There's always a feeling of comfort and joy when the first bite of tender, flaky fish hits the tongue.

Is it the price? Yup, a little bit. We live near Boston, so nothing on the menu is $4.95, but a dinner for two here is a much better value than 90% of the places we go.

Is it the service? That's part of it, too. The people, without fail, have been great every time. The waiters and waitresses wait long enough, but never keep you waiting. They're friendly, smile a lot, and say helpful things, like, "Be careful. That plate is hot."

Is it that other places stink? Sure, that's a reason, too. We've had our share of forgettable experiences. Then again, that's what you get when you order calamari at an Irish bar. (Stupid, stupid, stupid.)

In the end, I think it's the memories. Don't get me wrong. It's all of the reasons above, too, but it's looking across the table at my wife and remembering one of our first dates. It's remembering my hands shaking as I tried to drink champagne 10 minutes after we got engaged. It's remembering Thursday night.

Very few places will ever be in that "Our Place" category. They really have to earn it. So when they do, when you get to that comfortable and happy place, go there often.

In fact, when's the last time you went?