Surviving And Thriving through The Holidays
I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We ended up having a wonderful time with a close friend's family. It was definitely touch and go for a bit, though, as to whether we would be doing anything at all. I was starting to feel really sad about the idea of skipping the holiday, as you can tell from Wednesday's post. Thanksgiving has been an interesting holiday for us in military life.
My husband has missed half of our Thanksgiving celebrations. About a month after our wedding, my husband left for SERE, and that is where he spent our first Thanksgiving as a married couple. That one was really hard for both of us. It's his favorite holiday, so it was tough to miss that. And even worse, to spend it at a casino buffet (surprisingly good) while preparing to spend a week in the woods without much food.
I thought about flying out there to be with him for the day, but financially, it wasn't an option. Holiday flights are always so expensive, let alone when I would have to go from North Carolina to Washington. It would have been a couple grand. So, I stayed home and represented us for both families.
It was tough because we were still newlyweds, so of course, I was missing him. Being with my family was a reminder that someone was missing. Being with my husband's family was hard because I didn't really know them at that point. We were both balancing the outsider at the dinner table while desperately trying to make it feel like family. It was an interesting combination.
Overall, though, that Thanksgiving was hard because I missed my husband more so than the fact that he was missing Thanksgiving. Our marriage was so new, and it should have been a great celebration to attend as the newlywed couple, but that didn't happen.
He missed the second Thanksgiving while he was deployed. That one was easier for me, though. I, again, represented us to both families and while it was hard to be solo when I should have been a couple, I was in a better place. I knew my husband's family much better, so it was much more natural to join in their celebrations. And Thanksgiving happened during month four out of his five-month deployment.
At that point in our separations, I had a routine. I had figured out how to live life without him, even if it sucked. By the time we reached Thanksgiving, the countdown had gotten so small that I was more excited than anything else. It was hard to miss the holiday separation, but it meant that he was less than one month away from coming home. Thanksgiving had been a mile marker that I counted down to, and once I hit it, I was more focused on hitting the next one.
All this to say, the holidays my husband missed were really hard, and they happened at times that eased the burden of that pain. I wouldn't wish that loneliness on anyone, but somehow, as military spouses, we always find a way through. I've been very lucky that this is all we've missed. He got home shortly before Christmas from his deployment and hasn't missed any big holidays since.
There have been too many minor holidays missed for me to count, but those were never the primary ones we celebrated anyway. We've either adjusted the dates or skipped them altogether. For a decent amount, we were just bummed that we missed the three or four-day weekend together.
I don't think it gets any easier to go through the holidays alone. Each one is different, and we have to continually find newer and better coping skills to help us through. I've only had to deal with separations over holidays when it was just my husband and I. That is a totally different ballgame than doing it with kids, especially older ones who notice when someone is missing.
I was blessed to have my family together for Thanksgiving this year. As much as I mourned not being with extended family, I know plenty of people would have made that trade with me. I hope, whatever your situation looked like this year, you found a way to make the day feel however you needed it to.
For me, I needed it to feel like a memorable holiday. We found that by joining one of my best friends and her family. Her parents moved four hours away from our duty station, and she happened to be celebrating with them rather than her husband's family, who was much further away. That friend and I went Black Friday shopping this morning, which has been a tradition between my mom, sister, and me for many years. It felt like a holiday, and I was grateful to be with people I considered family.
Others, though, may have wanted the day to pass without any pomp and circumstance. And that is 100% okay. We have to figure out what works best for our family and our life stage. Creating Thanksgiving magic with three kids under five while our spouse is deployed and family is nowhere near may be something we want to have nothing to do with. Maybe we just want to spend the day working on projects, rooting for our favorite football team, or counting the days until school starts back. Maybe we find peace in doing absolutely nothing because it's just us and our spouse for the holiday.
I hope you found what works for you this Thanksgiving. And I hope we all have plans to make the rest of the holiday season feel exactly the way we want it to. I'm still trying to figure out how to make Christmas feel magical in our house (if we are even in our house at that point). Everything in military life feels like good practice because we will almost certainly encounter these situations in some way, shape, or form in the coming years. If we didn't get it right this time, then we've got one more session under our belt to try and figure it out for next time. I wish you the best of luck thriving through this holiday season.