The 9th Anniversary Gift Is Pottery, or Willow
The traditional ninth anniversary gift is pottery on the American list. Hallmark gives willow or pottery, and British lists say copper. Like every year between the tenth and the fifth, it was added after Emily Post’s 1922 list.
US traditional: pottery · UK lists: copper · Hallmark: willow or pottery
What Does the 9th Anniversary Gift Mean?
Pottery is earth shaped by hand and fired so it lasts, which is close to what nine years is. Willow is the flexible reading: a tree that bends in a storm instead of breaking. Either way the ninth is a year about the shape a marriage has settled into, rather than about anything shiny. The 9th is not in Emily Post’s Etiquette (1922), which listed only eight anniversaries. It comes from the expanded year-by-year list generally credited to American jewelers in 1937 (history). Hallmark’s list gives willow or pottery.
Checked against Emily Post, Wikipedia and Hallmark on .
What Are Good 9th Anniversary Gift Ideas?
- A set of handmade plates. For the table you sit at every night.
- A willow basket. For picnics, logs or the laundry. Woven, useful, lasting.
- A planter and the plant. Pottery with something growing in it.
- A weekend at a pottery studio. Wheel, glaze, kiln. Pick up the pieces at the tenth.
- A copper piece, for the UK list. A copper vase or kettle if you follow the British list.
- A clay-style portrait. The two of you painted as handmade clay figures.
What We Make for the 9th
Our Clay Crew style paints the two of you (or the family nine years has made) as handmade claymation figures, from one ordinary photo. It is a printed portrait, not fired pottery, so it pairs well with a real handmade mug or plate. It prints as a framed canvas, a canvas or a puzzle.
9th Anniversary Questions
What is the traditional 9th anniversary gift? +
Pottery on the American traditional list. Hallmark gives willow or pottery, and British lists give copper.
Why do some lists say willow? +
Lists published by retailers sometimes give a second material for years that were never on the original 1922 list. Hallmark’s list pairs willow with pottery for the 9th.
Is the Clay Crew portrait real clay? +
No. It is a printed portrait painted to look like handmade clay figures, with your real faces.
Other Anniversaries
- 1st: paper
- 2nd: cotton
- 3rd: leather
- 4th: fruit and flowers
- 5th: wood
- 6th: iron
- 7th: wool, copper
- 8th: bronze
- 10th: tin, aluminum
- 11th: steel
- 12th: silk
- 25th: silver
- 50th: gold
Every year from the 1st to the 60th, with the US and UK lists side by side, is on the anniversary gifts by year page.