In the story, Robert Layton learns that something too simple or too insignificant could forever change his life; after figuring out that a family could mean many vital things in life. After Robert marries a woman, named Kate, he begins a new generation in his family. This kind of change in a person's lifetime proves to be a difficult task to experience; but Robert has made his life simple by working hard. From one of Benjamin Franklin's quote, "To be successful, one must work hard, but work as if you will work for 100 years..." the reader can conclude from this quote that putting adequate amounts of effort, while living in the past, can result in a successful life in the future. To relate this into The Christmas Shoes, Robert works like a mindless robot worker, but barely has the time to spend a moment with his family. Kate, Robert's wife, begins to lose faith in Robert because of his unimportance to the family and plans to divorce from him after Christmas. Robert realizes this and comes to a decision to redeem himself and reunite his family together. So far, Robert comes up with the idea of buying Kate expensive gifts will bring more attention to him. While shopping in the mall, a poor child attempts to borrow money from Robert so the child could buy a gift for his sick mother. Robert listens to the child's situation and offers him the money. At that time, Robert realizes that buying expensive gifts for his wife would not work. The best way to gain attention of a love one is to supply that person with one's own love and care. Men do not gain attention from anyone just by buying material-rich objects for one another. As Robert tries to apologize to Kate, he admits how he could not love Kate without showing her Robert's own method of love; Kate forgives him for his admission of guilt. Summing it up, Robert changed from being a wealthy person with no care for his family to experiencing some of the most unimportant things could make his life better.