The Christmas Box

The Magic of Christmas is understood to be divine, connecting it to the Christian faith. Richard is visited by an angel, whom he understands as a “divine messenger” in his dream (63). Music which permeates his dreams and persists when he is awake leads him to the Christmas Box, which helps him to understand the fleeting, impermanent nature of childhood, and therefore to treasure his time with his daughter, Jenna, as well as his future children. Richard connects his love for Jenna and Mary’s love for Andrea to God’s love for his son, Jesus. This emphasizes the Christian belief system underpinning the text.

The Christmas Box, which is empty at the end of the novella, nevertheless feels full to Richard. He believes it to be metaphorically full of parental love, as it used to contain Mary’s letters to her deceased and desperately missed daughter, Andrea. Parental love has a divine element for Richard, as it reminds him of the Christian belief about God’s love for his son, Jesus, and God’s sacrifice of his son to atone for the sins of man: “The sacred contents of that box are a parent's pure love for a child, manifested first by a Father's love for all His children, as He sacrificed that which He loved most and sent His son to earth on that Christmas day so long ago” (125).