While I'm always happy to receive good dark organic chocolate or bouquet of organic flowers for Valentine's Day, my favorite gifts are those that come from the heart.

After all, Valentine's Day is about love, and what better way to express love than to give of yourself?

Here are the three best Valentine gifts my husband Larry has given me over the past eighteen years...straight from his heart.

The third best Valentine

A couple of years ago, I was in Florida and Larry was in California for Valentine's Day, so he sent me a Valentine's greeting in the mail.

He went to an art supply store and got a 7-foot long sheet of butcher paper. Then he laid the paper on the floor, laid down on top of the paper with his arms outstretched, and traced all around his fingers, arms, and head with a red crayon.

He drew a big smile on his face and wrote "Here is a big life-sized hug for you, Debra!" and sent it to me all rolled up in a big mailing tube.

It still hangs on the wall in our house.

The second best Valentine

One year I wanted to go to a particular restaurant for dinner on Valentine's Day.

I had read about it in a cooking magazine. They didn't take reservations.

When we arrived at the restaurant, we were told it was a two hour wait for a table. I almost cried.

Larry said, "We're going to get a table and it's not going to take two hours."

He was right. We just sat down on the bench and waited. One by one, the hostess called the names, but there were few responses. We got our table in twenty minutes.

The dinner was delicious, but the real gift was his intention, his tenacity, and his confidence. That night he was truly a knight in shining armor.

The very very very best Valentine

One year, when we were living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I was working in Sacramento just before Valentine's Day.

I was supposed to be home for Valentine's Day, but I had to stay over two more days in Sacramento, which was about a 3-hour drive from our house.

When I finished my work on Valentine's Day, I went back to the hotel. As I was walking from my car to the hotel through the parking lot, Larry drove up and surprised me!

What was really a surprise was that I had never told him the name of the hotel and he found me anyway...even though he had never been to that part of Sacramento before and didn't have a map. He just said, "It was Valentine's Day and I wanted to be with you, so here I am!" [Larry says, "I didn't know anything about Sacramento--I just went to where *you* were..."]

BACK TO DEBRA'S LIST: Gifts