The holidays are very special to my
family. While my husband was still active duty Army, there were a few years he
was gone a lot. He missed 3 Thanksgivings and Christmases in a row because he
was deployed to Afghanistan, and then deployed to Iraq after that. We had three
small children at that time and they were used to their dad being gone often.
We tried to celebrate the holidays either before he deployed, or after he got home. The first deployment (06-07 to
Afghanistan) we didn’t think about celebrating the holidays before he left, we
were just trying to deal with the emotions of him leaving. The next deployment
(07-09 to Iraq) we celebrated Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas all in
one. This deployment he was for 15 months. When the holiday season came around
again, we waited until he returned home and celebrated it late, in January.
Since
we understand the sadness of having a family member gone and not knowing if
they will be home for future holiday seasons, we keep all our service members
currently serving in the front of our hearts for the season, and honestly all
year. Every year we find a service member that is deployed and send them things
through out his deployment. We will also send their family little reminders
that we are thinking and praying for them. This year we have started visiting
the veterans in our local hospitals and nursing homes around Christmas with our
local VFW. Every year during the
holidays we try to find a special way to make veterans and service members feel
appreciated and loved. They are our heroes.
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