After 34 weekends of non-stop Cup Series races, NASCAR’s premier racers can relax and enjoy with their families. Making these moments count saw Denny Hamlin announcing that he and fiancé Jordan Fish would welcome a little one or Kyle Busch gifting a boat to his talented son Brexton. But for a change, Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s household was a tad quieter. How times change…

It wasn’t a long time ago when the Earnhardt household was buzzed throughout the Christmas week. No, Junior didn’t take a page from the fashion magazines to shower his wife with diamonds. Instead, for everyone here who thinks Junior has gotten too sophisticated for his NASCAR roots, you should take a hint from what he gifted his wife for Christmas in 2019 and run with it. It was a 1966 El Camino, an odd car-truck hybrid made from 1964 through 1987.  “By far the best gift I’ve ever received … I’ve wanted one for as long as I can remember. And it’s perfect!” she posted on Instagram.

Well, you can’t put a price tag on something like that… as much as you can’t can’t put a price tag on what Mrs. Earnhardt wished from Santa this Christmas.

As the Christmas spirit induced noisy merriment and cheers in other households, it brought a kind of peace to Dale Jr.’s home. Amy Earnhardt dropped a post on the joyous occasion that comes once a year, but her kind of celebration was one of a kind. Her Instagram story carried a meaningful saying loaded with sarcasm:

“Today I’m going to really give it my nothing.” Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s wife herself wrote, “Power button off.” Well, after almost a decade into marriage, the list of things you’d gift each other certainly narrows down. And although Amy might have prayed for a quiet dinner, she had timely intimated her husband what she’d love to be gifted weeks ahead of Christmas. To be precise, she threw a challenge at Junior even if it meant her hailing Junior’s arch nemesis. The conversation on Dale Jr. Download Podcast went something like this:

Amy: “I want jewelry, his arch nemesis.”
Dale: “So in the past, I myself will go and I will scour the web and I will find something that I like and I will get that for her and she will like it.”
Amy: “That was the problem. He will come home and tell me, I was out shopping. I saw this thing made me think of you. I’m like, ‘Did you buy it?’ ‘Nope.’”

Dale Jr. later opened out about his goals for Christmas before the holiday season. “There’s like a vision of like I hope this there’s a couple things that I hope happen… We start to prep the living room for Christmas for when they come down. And I am hopeful that like when that’s done we have like me and Amy have like a 20 or 30-minute sit on the couch… We kind of just kind of sit there before we go to bed, and just have a moment to ourselves.,” he said on the Dale Jr. Download.

Amy was there when Dale Jr. felt the most vulnerable 

While Amy Earnhardt goes through a tiring Christmas, it’s worth looking back at Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s struggles during the end of his career and how Amy stood by his side throughout. Dale Earnhardt Jr. retired from the Cup Series after the end of 2017, but he had to cope with his concussion recovery period. Dale Jr. believed that a major crash in a 2012 Kansas race had first kicked off concussion symptoms. He missed half of 2016 due to this reason, and Amy was by his side for much of the rehabilitation process.

Dale Jr. opened up on how helpful Amy was during his recovery in a 2018 interview with Graham Bensinger.”I never had been that vulnerable before and I’ve never been in need of someone like that before like I needed someone every minute of the day. Without Amy, I probably would have suffered emotionally, real severely. So having her there every day was really reassuring,” said Jr.

Dale Jr. and Amy got married in 2016 and Jr. opened up to Autoweek in 2018 about how marriage changed his life. “I’ve grown a lot as a person. We both have changed tremendously. There were not many surprises or disappointments. Every day is better with Amy as a part of it, and I’ve learned to be someone who makes her life better each day,” Dale Jr. added.

Evidently, Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s relaxation period descended after he retired from racing. However, his wife Amy may need some support from her husband to wade through stressful times.