Free The Christmas Box by Richard Paul Evans

Merry Christmas

    Chapter I THE WIDOW'S MANSION
    It may be that I am growing old in this world and have used up more than my share of allotted words and eager audiences. Or maybe I am just growing weary of a skeptical age that pokes and prods at my story much the same as a middle-school biology student pokes and prods through an anesthetized frog to determine what makes it live, leaving the poor creature dead in the end. Whatever the reason, I find that with each passing Christmas the story of the Christmas Box is told less and needed more. So I record it now for all future generations to accept or dismiss as seems them good. As for me , I believe. And it is, after all, my story.
    My romantic friends, those wh o b elieve in Santa Claus in particular , have speculated that the ornamente d b rown Christmas Box was fashione d b y Saint Nick himself from the trunk o f t he very first Christmas tree, brough t i n from the cold December snows s o m any seasons ago. Others believ e t hat it was skillfully carved and polished from the hard and splintere d w ood from whose rough surface the Lord of Christmas had demonstrate d t he ultimate love for mankind. My wife , Keri, maintains that the magic of th e b ox had nothing to do with its physica l e lements, but all to do with the contents that were hidden beneath it s b rass, holly-shaped hinges and silve r c lasps. Whatever the truth about th e o rigin of the box's magic, it is th e e mptiness of the box that I will treasure most, and the memory of the Christmas season when the Christmas Box found me.
    I was born and raised in the shadow of the snow-clad Wasatch range on the east bench of the Salt Lake Valley. Just two months before my fourteenth birthday my father lost his job, and with promise of employment, we sold our home and migrated to the warmer, and more prosperous, climate of Southern California. There, with great disappointment, I came to expect a green Christmas almost as religiously as the local retailers. With the exception of one fleeting moment of glory as the lead in the school musical, my teenage years were uneventful and significant only to myself. Upon graduation from hig h s chool, I enrolled in college to lear n t he ways of business, and in the process learned the ways of life; met , courted, and married a fully matriculated, brown-eyed design studen t n amed Keri, who, not fifteen, month s f rom the ceremony, gave birth to a s even-pound-two-ounce daughter whom we named Jenna.
    Neither Keri nor I ever cared muc h f or the crowds of the big city, so whe n a few weeks before graduation w e w ere informed of a business opportunity in my hometown, we jumped a t t he chance to return to the thin ai r a nd white winters of home. We ha d e xpended all but a small portion o f o ur savings in the new venture and , as the new business's initial returns , albeit promising, were far from abundant, we learned the ways of thrif t a nd frugality. In matters financial, Keri became expert at making much fro m l ittle, so we rarely felt the extent of our deprivation. Except in the realm of lodging. The three of us needed more space than our cramped, one-bedroom apartment afforded. The baby's crib, which economics necessitated the use of in spite of the fact that our baby was now nearly four, barely fit in our bedroom, leaving less than an inch between it and our bed, which was already pushed up tightly against the far wall. The kitchen was no better, cluttered with Jenna's toy box, Keri's sewing hutch, and stacked cardboard boxes containing cases of canned foods. We joked that Keri could make clothing and dinner at the same time without ever leaving her seat. The topic of overcrowding had reached fever pitch in our household just seven weeks before Christmas and such was the frenzied state of our minds when the tale of the Christmas Box really began, at the breakfast table in our little apartment, ove r e ggs over-easy, toast, and orang e j uice.
    "Look at this," Keri said,