Giving my first real Valentine's Day gift

I'm pushing myself away from the TV this week (well, no, not the whole week; that'd be silly) because I'm really quite excited about something monumental that I did a few days ago.

I bought my fiancee a Valentine's Day gift.

It's supposed to be a surprise, so I can't just blurt out what it is in this particular space. See, my intended might pick up a copy of the paper today -- one day before the big reveal -- and if I were to tell you here what I selected to be my first real Valentine's Day gift to her, well, if that wouldn't be the 2009 Webster's Dictionary definition of "spoiling the surprise," it would be in 2010.

Doesn't stop me from wanting to let everyone in on the gift, though. I'm really rather pleased with what I chose to buy for her -- there were plenty of smiles and winks and thumbs-up from those who saw me toddling around with it in my shopping cart the other day, too, so I think the public at large also approved of my selection.

I'm pretty sure she's going to like it as well -- at least I hope so. I'm not really second-guessing myself, but -- OK, I am.

I can already hear you asking, "So? What's the big deal?"

I totally understand. I'm a little exuberant-yet-unenlightened about buying a gift like this for someone on this occasion. But I've never done it before. Frankly, I've never considered myself a Valentine's Day kind of guy.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think I ever carried any malice against it (after all, any day in our culture that is celebrated with an almost ritualistic consumption of mass quantities and varieties of chocolate is a day that richly deserves support) -- but I also never had anyone to share it with, so that might explain more than a little of my reaction.

Sure, in elementary school, I'd build a "mailbox" (more akin to large construction paper envelopes than to anything that could be sanctioned by the U.S. Postal Service), one just like everyone else's in my class, and watch it swell a little at a time until I had -- on average -- a semi-tall stack of flimsy cards, usually cartoon-charactered, a half-dozen rolls of Smarties and/or SweeTarts, a "Fun Pak" of M&Ms, a child's fistful of Tootsie Roll Midgees, and a cherry-red (and cherry Sucrets throat lozenge-flavored) heart-shaped lollipop with raised white lettering that implored me to "Be" someone's "Mine." And I was happy with that.

Time passed, and the concept of an egalitarian Valentine's Day evaporated, but it didn't bother me that much. February 14ths would come and go, with no real effect on my calendar. I didn't have anyone to share that day (or any other, for that matter) with me, and for the longest time, I was perfectly okay with that.

You may have gathered that my feelings on the issue have changed.

That's why I'm a bundle of happy-sappy emotions as this Valentine's Day approaches, I suppose -- I finally have someone to spend the day with, the same someone I'm preparing to spend my life with, too. I want my first gift to her to be something that she not only remembers, but treasures. Something she tells her friends and folks -- and eventually, our kids -- about. Something she keeps forever, even when the size and shape of it is only a beloved memory.

And I think you'd agree that's a very big deal.