Merry Christmas to All!

This will be my last blog I write before Christmas as I will be taking Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off next week, and so I want to take this opportunity to wish all of you a Very Merry Christmas!  I truly hope all of you have the most amazing Christmas ever, full of love, laughter, and cheer.   Christmas is such an amazing holiday.  Tonight I spent the evening loading old photos onto a digital picture frame to send to my son, who is serving a mission for our church and thus won’t be able to be home this year for Christmas.  I went back in time and loaded over ten years of past Christmas Eve and Christmas Day photos for him, along with photos of other holidays, and vacations, and random fun photos.  As I loaded the old Christmas photos onto the frame I marveled at how each year was the same pattern of tradition. Reading the story of the Savior’s birth from the Bible.  Having all the children act out the nativity scene in their cute little costumes.  The reading of Twas the Night Before Christmas, followed by singing Christmas carols until everyone is sung out.  And always ending on Silent Night, my personal favorite of the Christmas carols.  Then after writing a note to Santa and leaving a plate of cookies, the children go to bed to wait for the arrival of Santa Claus and his reindeer.  The next morning we wake up and have Danish and egg nog before we line the kids up, youngest to oldest, and then they come down the stairs in that order and make a surprise face while mom and dad snap away on the camera.  Year after year there were photos of these events.  It was so fun to go through and see them all and each year brought back a flood of good memories.  It is amazing how Christmas allows us to put the world aside and just enjoy the holiday.  The memories of Christmas are something I will treasure forever.  I am so grateful for this special time of year. 

This year I have to admit that the thing I am most excited for is the phone call home that I get to have from my son Dalton.  Missionaries are allowed to call home to talk to their families just twice each year.  Once on Mother’s Day and once on Christmas Day.  I am SO EXCITED to get the chance to talk to him!  Rollin and Ashley and I are counting down the minutes until that phone call comes.  We miss him so much it is hard to even describe, especially at Christmas.  But poor Ashley, not only is there no one to line up at the top of the stairs with Christmas morning to walk down and look surprised, but this year she won’t be able to walk down the stairs at all… so traditions will be hard to uphold this year, but we will do the best that we can to do all the traditions that we can.  We love tradition at our house.  Perhaps traditions represent some semblance of certainty in a world that is so full of uncertainty.  Whatever the reason, we value tradition very much in our family.

I truly wish each of you and your families an amazing Christmas Eve and Christmas Day next week.  May Santa bring each of you the presents you wished for, and may God grant you the blessings you and your family stand in need of.

May you have the gladness of Christmas which is hope,

The Spirit of Christmas which is peace,

and the heart of Christmas which is love.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!

With Love,
Amy

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