Once upon a time, a man punished his five year old daughter for using up the family's only roll of expensive gold wrapping paper before Christmas. Money was tight, so he became even more upset when on Christmas Eve, he saw that the child had used the wrapping paper to decorate a large shoebox she had put under the Christmas Tree. Nevertheless, the next morning the little girl, filled with excitement, brought the gift box to her father and said,"This is for you, Daddy!" As he opened the box, the father was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction, now regretting how he punished her.
But when he opened the shoebox, he found it was empty and again his anger flared. "don't you know, young lady," he said harshly, "when you give someone a present there's supposed to be something inside the package!" The little girl looked up at him with tears rolling from her eyes and whispered: " Daddy, it's not empty. I blew kisses into it until it was full."
The father was crushed. He fell on his knees and put his arms around his precious little girl. He begged her to forgive him for his unnecessary anger. An accident took the life of the child only a short time later. It is told the father kept this little shoebox by his bed for all the years of his life. Whenever he was discouraged or faced difficult problems, he would open the box, take out an imaginary kiss, and remember the love of his beautiful child who had put it there.
In a very real sense, each of us have been given an invisible box filled with unconditional love and kisses from our family, friends and the Promise of Christmas. There is no more of a precious possession anyone could hold.
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