Essay Questions

Why do you think Mary was so anxious for Richard to identify the first Christmas gift?

Mary knows that the first ever Christmas gift was the gift of a child. She is therefore anxious for Richard to realize this so that he can also realize that he is wasting the gift that he has been given in Jenna, and change this before it is too late. As a mother who has lost her child so young, Mary knows that the time he has to spend with Jenna when she is an infant is precious and fleeting; before he realizes it she will be grown, and childhood will be behind her. He can never get that time back again. Mary is very anxious to save him from making the mistake of never building on his bond with Jenna. Although Jenna will become an adult, something that Mary's daughter Andrea never had the chance to do, her childhood will still be something that is lost to Richard when this happens. Mary is trying to encourage him to spend more time making memories than making his business into an empire, because she knows from experience that your child's bond is something that can never break. She wants him to identify the very first gift so that he can identify the gift that God has given him in the form of Jenna, and build on it, rather than wasting it.

Andrea appears as the stone angel to Richard before Mary ever sees her. Why is this?

Richard never knew Andrea, and so to him she is symbolized by the stone angel. She is hovering near Mary, signifying Mary's impending death, but knowing that death is not immediate, she does not appear to Mary yet, since she is not ready to go with Andrea to the next world. The fact that Andrea is symbolized by an angel shows that she is trying to bring Richard a message, or a warning, in this case, that Mary is going to pass soon. She also leads him to the Christmas Box, which is what unlocks Mary's secret for him, and enables him to learn the lesson of Christmas that Mary is trying to teach him.

Mary's letters to Andrea read like love letters. Describe the nature of this love.

Mary's letters are like love letters because this is the deepest love she has ever felt, and therefore the love that is expressed in the deepest and strongest manner. Mary and Andrea's souls love each other so that when Andrea has passed away they are still connected as strongly as when she was alive. Mary believes that the strongest love in the world is the love of a mother for a child, and that all parental love is symbolic of the love God gave to the world in the person of Jesus, the King of Christmas. She also feels that the mother's love for a child is an allegory for all other loves, shaping how we love other people but remaining the strongest love of all. To Mary, Andrea's soul is still present in her life and she believes that she and Andrea are able to communicate even though they are on differing spiritual planes. This is why her love letters to Andrea are written as one would write to a loved one who is still very much alive; Andrea is still alive in Mary's heart.