It had been a long day at work. Jack came back from the hospital at around 8pm on December 18th and found that his three-year-old daughter was still awake. She looked exactly like Kate with her gorgeous curly brown hair, a splitting image of her mother, the only person who was as beautiful as she was. He watched little Anna as he stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the den, but she didn't notice her father looking at her.
She was wrapping a box up in gold foil wrapping paper that he remembered Kate buying at the weekend. Kate came up behind Jack, putting her arms around him from behind, and sighed. "That's your Christmas present." She told him in a cheeky, teasing voice.
"Mine?" He asked, making sure he had heard right.
"She's worked hard on it, all day." Kate told him. "All by herself."
Jack knew how important it was for Anna at the moment to feel she had done things all by herself, and smiled as he watched her placing the wrapped box underneath the Christmas tree in the corner of the room, looking extremely proud with herself. He didn't think twice about it as his daughter came toddling over to him yawning, and he and Kate took her upstairs to bed.
Come Christmas morning, his curiousity had grown tenfold as to what was in the box. So when Anna came running it at 5am on Christmas morning, he was just as excited as she was to follow Kate downstairs to where in the middle of the night, the pair had put out all of Anna's hidden presents under the tree.
Anna immediately grabbed the gold-foiled box for Jack, and took it over to him. "This is for you, Daddy." She said in her chirpy voice.
He smiled, kissing her forehead as she sat down beside where he sat cross-legged on the floor. She mimicked him, as she usually did. Jack opened the box, but was surprised to find it empty. He frowned softly. "It's empty." He said quietly.
To his surprise, Anna laughed, as did Kate. When he looked up to see what they were laughing at, Anna jumped up and threw her arms around his neck. "Oh, Daddy, you're so silly. It's not empty!" She told him. "I blew kisses into the box for you, all for you, Daddy."
Jack was momentarily stunned, but put his arms tightly around his daughter. Tears sprung to his eyes for the sweet child they had raised. "Thank you." He told her, and sat with the box beside him while Anna sat in his lap opening her presents, and Kate filmed it.
Jack kept that box on his bedside table for years, and whenever he had a hard day, or he felt discouraged, and Anna was not nearby, he would take out an imaginary kiss, and remember the love of the child who had put it in there.