Hearts Apart for the Holidays: A Military Family's Story

It is the joyous holiday season, a time of traditions, festivities, and gathering with friends and family, but for those with loved ones in the military it may not be so joyous. The holiday season seems to be an especially difficult time to cope with separation. Loved ones may be separated within the United States or they may be separated because the active duty member is deployed overseas. The key is to find ways to communicate and let those loved ones know that even though they may be far apart in distance they remain close in your heart.

My husband is an active duty member of the Air Force who recently returned from deployment. There have been a couple of holidays when we were separated because duty called. On the home front this meant I was responsible for everything associated with the holidays: the tree, presents, cards, cookies. All of these things mean "Christmas" in our home and I wanted to maintain as much normalcy for our toddler as possible. Both our toddler and my husband had a special Christmas jar of 25 Hershey Kisses, one to be eaten for each day between December 1^st and December 25^th. This ritual seemed to help our toddler feel closer to Daddy knowing he was doing the same thing to countdown to Christmas.

At least we were fortunate enough to celebrate in the comfort of our own home with friends and family members who had traveled to be with us. We thought it was bad, but at least we had these things we were used to and relied on to cope. My deployed husband was not in the comfort of his own home and had the bare minimum. To ensure he was in the holiday spirit, I mailed many holiday crafts our son had created along with the traditional Christmas cookies, which he shared with his troops.

What he really appreciated the most was the Christmas video I sent him of our son singing Christmas songs, Christmas lights in the neighborhood, and family and friends sending their well wishes. Theses videos were played for all troops to see and according to my husband everyone got much enjoyment out of doing so. Thanks to modern day technology we emailed and my husband called us as much as allowable especially in those couple of weeks around the celebrated holiday. The best part for us was when the Hearts Apart Program set up video teleconferencing for us to see and talk to each other across thousand and thousands of miles.

This holiday, we are fortunate to be able to spend it together as a family here in the United States, but we realize there may come a time we will be separated again during a holiday. We think about troops who are currently deployed and try to involve their family members in the local festivities. We hope to experience enough joy and create many memories that last for years. Memories that will help us feel closer during those times of separation.