My most memorable gift was my daughter, who was born December 22. I was convinced I was having another boy. At three in the morning the day after she was born, I took her in my arms and we listened to jazz on the radio while looking out at a light snowfall.

My husband gave me a ring with three diamonds, representing the past, present and future. When I opened the box, there was, along with the ring, an ad about it that I'd shown him ten years earlier. I had said, "If we ever have any money, I'd love to have a ring like this." He remembered.

It was a scrapbook of my life that my daughter-in-law made for me. Along with pages about my sons and me, she included a poem she wrote about raising a family, being strong and making it through. I knew then she was the right one for my son.

Our baby's day-care teacher gave us a night of babysitting so my husband and I could have time to relax. It wasn't just the gift—it was the idea that after five days a week, she still wanted to hang out with my son.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer at 35, when I had two young children, and underwent a mastectomy and 12 chemotherapy treatments. That year, my friend Nancy gave me a silver survivor bracelet from Gifts for a Cure. Words can't describe how much that gift meant to me—and still does.

A donation in my name was made to Operation Smile, which helps repair children's cleft lips and palates, by a parent at my child's school. It touched me to know that someday a child would smile.

When I was a stay-at-home mom years ago, I received an unexpected package. We didn't have too many extras, and I was very lonely. I opened the box to find the prettiest winter coat I'd ever seen. It was from my mom, who said she'd been thinking of me. I sat and cried. I wore that coat until it was worn out.

A woman once sent me a letter saying I was the turning point in her son's education. I was his second-grade teacher, and he was a special-education student. She said that because I believed in him, he believed in himself. He's now an engineering student at the University of Georgia.

On Christmas Eve, I fill everyone's stocking. One year, my preschool-age son felt bad because the rest of the family got something and I didn't, so he told me to check my stocking. In it I found a pair of earrings carefully and thoughtfully constructed out of paper clips.

One year my husband gave me a memory box that contained pieces of paper with memories of our first year of dating. I smile whenever I read one. The next year I gave him the same gift. We try to be sneaky and add to each other's boxes when the other isn't looking.

It was a pink pen with a smiling face and pink hair, from my 5-year-old niece. She said, "I got you this crazy pen for work, since you always say how crazy it is." I keep the pen on my desk as a reminder that there's more to life than my job.

I was frazzled from working and taking care of our toddler, and my husband knew it. So he gave me a night at a bed-and-breakfast. He surprised me by filling the room with my favorite snacks, magazines and music—one of the best gifts ever.

In my early twenties, I received a Swiss Army knife from my father. It was his way of acknowledging that he was letting me go out into the world but giving me something to protect and help me when he couldn't be there.I cherish it.

I was a single mom and could barely afford rent and food in 1998. A stranger knocked on my door and gave me a box with canned food, many holiday ornaments she'd made and a small artificial Christmas tree. She wanted me to have a fully decorated tree of my own. It made me cry.                                        —Margaret Kuumomi Ho, secretary, City and County of Honolulu, HI