Christmas with Amy

So before Amy left on her mission, we had a little mini Christmas for her. Amy made this adorable cross stitch for Lisa. As I was gushing over it, my dad asked me, "You've done cross stitch, haven't you?" I said, "Oh yeah, I've started tons of them." Te he he, completing things isn't my forte.

And this is a picture of my favorite Christmas tradition. Every year our family reads Christmas stories every day in December before Christmas...well, TRIES to read every day before Christmas. My dad is always the one that reads them, and he ALWAYS cries. ALWAYS. I love it. My first memory of this was when I was in high school. My dad was reading Davey and the First Christmas. My brother was at that age where he got into EVERYTHING, and wanted to help with EVERYTHING, and always managed to do more damage than good. He was the sweetest boy, but man! I remember a time where EVERY SINGLE meal he would spill his drink. EVERY SINGLE MEAL. My poor mom. We started making bets on how long it would be before his drink spilled. The person who guessed the soonest was the one who usually won.

Anyway, my dad was reading this story, and about half way through he started tearing up. I knew he was thinking about my brother. So sweet and trying so hard, but just making everything worse than before.

Ever since then I have ABSOLUTELY LOVED hearing my dad read/tear up while reading Christmas stories.

It was a nice little pre-Christmas Christmas. And even better because Amy was there with us. I sure miss her!!!