Twenty years ago, when my husband and I first started dating, we didn�t have money for Christmas gifts, so we got inventive. We started a tradition to exchange 101 things that cost no more than one dollar. I cut 101 hearts from red construction paper and taped them to his bedroom ceiling.

Just last month we moved into our first home. Before moving anything into our bedroom, he grabbed a stepladder and taped a tattered piece of red paper to the ceiling. It was one of those hearts I gave him, all those years before. He had saved it all those years, without me knowing.