A Simple Box

Since we will not be in town for Christmas, my folks gave my kids their Christmas gifts early. They are great gifts that my kids will have fun with and treasure for time to come.

With those gifts came a reminder of days long ago.

The gift my son received came in a big box. A box big enough for the kids to climb into. It has been fun to watch the innocence of loving the box. Sometimes as adults we forget the pleasures of simple things. Kids, however, find joy and excitement in things like boxes. The box will quickly be destroyed in the play and creativity of my kids but until it is a shredded pile of brown corregated wood waste it will be loved. Once it is destroyed it will be missed.

During their visit my dad reminded me of the box forts that my siblings and I had as kids. Complicated structures built from appliance boxes filled with stories and wonder. We would play in the boxes for lengths at a time. The boxes became castles, ships, submarines, homes, forts, and whatever else the imagination of a child willed it to be. When there were no boxes we had blankets, blankets that made great forts. Tuck a blanket into the drawer of a desk and let it drape to the floor and instantly it becomes the cave of a great monster or the hideout of some robbers. Simple things to amuse a childs imagination, simple things now taken for granted.

Do you have a child you can't think of a Christmas gift for? How about heading to your local appliance store and collecting the biggest, coolest, most treasured of childhood toys; a box.

I long to love the box again.

I pray for a simpler life.