Christmas boxes like the ones Homer and Nast pictured gave their recipients a much-needed mental and physical boost. When in 1861, for the first Harper's Christmas cover of the war, Homer drew overjoyed soldiers reveling in the contents of Adams Express boxes from home while a nearby sutler's tent stands devoid of customers, he captured a genuine experience of the men in uniform.

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John Haley of the 17th Maine, for instance, was working with a road crew the day before Christmas. As his body toiled, his mind focused anxiously on a parcel he expected from home. "It is rumored that there are sundry boxes and mysterious parcels over at Stoneman's Station directed to us," Haley had written in his diary. "We retire to sleep with feelings akin to those of children expecting Santa Claus. We have become very childish in some matters–grub being one of them."

On Christmas Day, Haley returned from his work detail to his tent. He wrote that he had endured the day's work only by virtue of the "anticipation of what was in store in our boxes." Then he had to endure a practical joke from his tentmate:

On returning to camp, I was informed by my tentmate that there was no parcel at the station bearing my name. My mental thermometer not only plummeted to below zero, it got right down off the nail and lay on the floor. Seeing this, my tentmate made haste to dive under the bed and produce the box, which he had brought from the station during my absence, and in a few minutes we were discussing the merits of its contents. Most of the men have been remembered, and any that have not received something from home are allowed to share with their more fortunate neighbors.

Henry Kyd Douglas, formerly of Confederate Lieutenant General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's staff, was wounded in the Battle of Gettysburg and captured. Confined to Johnson's Island Prison, Ohio, as Christmas 1863 approached, Douglas received several boxes containing items to make his confinement more bearable. Again, a practical joke finds its way into the story:

There came a carload of boxes for the prisoners about Christmas which after reasonable inspection, they were allowed to receive. My box contained more cause for merriment and speculation as to its contents than satisfaction. It had received rough treatment on its way, and a bottle of catsup had broken and its contents very generally distributed through the box. Mince pie and fruit cake saturated with tomato catsup was about as palatable as "embalmed beef" of the Cuban memory; but there were other things. Then, too, a friend had sent me in a package a bottle of old brandy. On Christmas morning I quietly called several comrades up to my bunk to taste the precious fluid of…DISAPPOINTMENT! The bottle had been opened outside, the brandy taken and replaced with water, adroitly recorded, and sent in. I hope the Yankee who played that practical joke lived to repent it and was shot before the war ended.

In the Christmas 1863 issue of Harper's, a Nast drawing titled "Christmas Furlough" showed the family members from the previous year's centerfold reunited, the husband and father home from war on a 30-day furlough. To be home for the holidays was the burning desire of every soldier. And as Sergeant A.R. Small jotted in his diary, some men used every ounce of creativity they could muster to make their request for a holiday furlough persuasive:

Applications for furloughs have been frequent of late, that Sergeant-Major Maxfield sent up his application, based on Deuteronomy, 20th chapter, seventh verse: "And what man is there that betrothed a wife, and hath not taken her? Let him go and return unto his house, lest he die in battle and another man take her." If approved, he says he shall ask for an extension, referring to Deuteronomy, 24th chapter, fifth verse: "When a man hath taken a new wife, he shall not go to war, neither shall he be charged with any business; but he shall free at home one full year, and shall cheer up his wife which he hath taken."

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