Two months before my mother’s 68th birthday, she mentioned to my niece and me, that her neighbor rode her bike everywhere. Mom was thinking how much fun that would be.

My response was, “Let’s get you a bike!” Whereas, my niece, who had only known her grandmother as an older woman and was concerned for her safety, responded, “Grandma, you’d never ride it.” I watched my mother deflate faster than a slashed tire.

When my sisters and I gathered for Mom’s birthday, I remembered her previous wish. After a sister powwow, one sister stayed home to occupy our unsuspecting parents, while another sister and I ventured to the bike shop.

The variety of beach cruisers made us giddy. Should we get Mom an electric pink bike with a flowered plastic basket? Or an emerald green with racing stripes? We settled on a bright red bike, embellished with white plumerias and white wall tires that rivaled a Cadillac.

After purchasing the bike, I rode it home in the dark winter night. As I passed a drugstore, I had an idea. I propped the bike in front of the window and went inside to purchase a string of Christmas lights. It was, after all, Dec. 21.

I pedaled home with childish excitement. Leaving the bike on the patio, I snuck inside. One at a time, my sisters disappeared to check out Mom’s new bike.

Only after Mom and Dad were sound asleep, did we roll the bike, embellished like a Christmas tree, into the darkened family room. We plugged in the lights, and the bike glowed with soft beams of blue, green, yellow and red.

About five o’clock the next morning, I awoke in anticipation, wondering if Mom had discovered her surprise. I tiptoed into the family room to find the Christmas-lit bike just as we’d left it the night before. I crawled back into bed with a smile on my face. The next day, I found out that each of my sisters had also awakened to check on the bike.

Dad was the first one up the next morning. Taking it in stride, he passed the bike, went to the kitchen for a nibble, then reported to Mom still in bed, “It looks like Christmas.”

Many years earlier, I had stood by the side of my cousin watching my father, microphone in hand, standing in front of a floor-to-ceiling curtain. The occasion was my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary. I knew my father well, even as a 7-year-old, and I knew he was more excited than I’d ever seen him. His mother stood by his side, calm, happy and unaware of the event about to take place. My father made a tribute to his parents and then the curtain swished open to an audience of gasps. Grandmother turned around and burst into tears. Behind the curtain was a brand new car.

The surprise bike for my mother was hardly close to picking out and buying a car, but on that occasion, I’m sure my sisters and I experienced the same anticipation and delight my father had had years earlier.

And so it is with giving — the plan, the purchase, the sacrifice, the hiding and the suspense — the giver always receives the greater present.