34 pages • 1 hour read
Richard Paul EvansThe Christmas Box
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1993A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaCharacter Analysis
Richard
Richard is the protagonist and narrator of The Christmas Box. Richard is married to Keri, whom he met at university. They have a three-year-old daughter, Jenna. The family relocates to Salt Lake Valley, the area where Richard grew up. Richard is Christian; his faith is an important part of his identity, as illustrated by his frequent reflections on the divine nature of the world. This includes the Christmas Box, which he thinks might have been “skillfully carved and polished from the hard and splintered wood from whose rough surface the Lord of Christmas had demonstrated the ultimate love for mankind” (16). Richard begins a formal-wear rental business that occupies much of his time, taking him away from his wife and daughter, much to Jenna’s disappointment.
Richard is a dynamic character who evolves throughout the novel. This evolution is catalyzed by Mary, whom Richard and his family move in with, and through the divine message delivered by Mary’s deceased daughter, Andrea, who leads him to the Christmas Box. Richard realizes that, in prioritizing his family’s financial stability, he had missed precious time with his daughter that he will never get back: “How foolish I'd been to let her childhood, her fleeting, precious childhood slip away” (118).
Keri
Keri, Richard’s wife, occupies a traditional role as a homemaker and mother. Like Richard, she feels a yearning to move from the city to “the thin air and white winters” of Utah (18). Keri is frugal and resilient, which is illustrated through her inventive meal preparation and the way that she organizes the family’s living space: “[I]n matters financial, Keri became expert at making much from little, so we rarely felt the extent of our deprivation” (18).
Keri appreciates The Importance of Familial Love in a way that Richard initially does not. She is a static character who does not undergo the same learning and transformation that Richard does, as she already epitomizes the traits of a loving and present parent. This is illustrated by her disgust when Richard rushes to work without giving Jenna a proper farewell: “Keri stopped me. ‘Aren't you going to kiss Jenna good-bye?’ she asked incredulously” (69).
Keri’s kindness is reflected by how she shifts her habits to accommodate and include Mary, whom she develops a close friendship with. Keri prioritizes spending time with the other woman: “Keri had established the habit of sharing supper with Mary in the downstairs den. They had even adopted the ritual of sharing an after-dinner cup of peppermint tea near the fire” (73).
Jenna
Jenna is Richard and Keri’s daughter. She is three-and-a-half years old when the novella begins and almost four when it ends. Jenna is a relaxed and easygoing child. For example, she is calm when the family moves from the small apartment to Mary’s home: “Jenna played contentedly in the front room, oblivious to the gradual disappearance of our belongings” (35).
Jenna’s function is to showcase the shift in Richard’s values. Initially, Jenna is frequently let down by her father’s busy dismissal of her needs. For example, she frowns with disappointment when Richard insists that he has no time to play with her, as he has to go to work:
“Dad, can you help me cut these?” she asked.
“Not now, honey, I'm late for work.”
The corners of her mouth pulled downward in disappointment” (69).
Jenna develops a loving relationship with Mary, who becomes a “surrogate grandmother” to Jenna. Mary attends Jenna’s dance recital, and Jenna often curls up on Mary’s lap so that the older woman can read to her.
At the novella’s conclusion, Richard holds his daughter adoringly, realizing that he has been allowing her “fleeting, precious childhood [to] slip away” as he has been trying to ensure the family’s financial stability (118).
MaryAnne Parkin
MaryAnne Parkin, who prefers to be called Mary by her friends, is an elderly lady who lives alone in a large, decadent, Victorian-style home. It soon becomes clear to Richard and Keri that Mary “had solicited a family to move in with her more for the sake of ‘family’ than real physical need” (55). Mary had been lonely, which accounts for the quick and sincere relationship she develops with Keri, Richard, and Jenna.
Mary is afflicted through her adult life with feelings of immense grief over the death of her daughter, Andrea, who died as a child. This is illustrated by the heartbroken letters that Mary writes to her deceased daughter, which she keeps in the Christmas Box: “Another Christmas season has come. The time of joy and peace. Yet how great a void still remains in my heart” (107). Furthermore, Steve remembers seeing Mary sobbing at the grave of her recently deceased child decades earlier, conveying Mary’s distress: “She was sobbing as if her heart were breaking” (103-4).
In recognition of Mary’s love for her child, Keri arranges Mary’s headstone to read “a loving mother” (124). This ties into the lesson that Mary teaches Richard, with the assistance of the divine messenger angel of Andrea, about The Importance of Familial Love.
