First Holiday Season Together as a Military Family

This holiday season will be Trevor’s and my first together as a military family. Sure, we’ve been together for six years and it isn’t our first holiday season together, but as we approach his two-years-of-service mark, we’ve only had the chance to celebrate a few holidays in the same place since he joined active duty.

This is the first year where we are more than 24 hours from where we grew up.

Last year, Trevor was halfway across the world, but I was able to spend the holidays (and some extra time) visiting family. It’s going to be tough for both of us to not see our parents and loved ones back home. I keep trying to come up with ideas for spending the holiday with our new friends and the “family” we’ve added since moving away from home.

Back in our pre-military life, weekends during this time of the year were spent celebrating the holidays with our friends and family.

My mother-in-law’s family has one combined Thanksgiving and Christmas in early December. Although all of her siblings live within three hours of each other, they find it easiest to throw two big get-togethers a year—one in the summer and one in early December—so there’s time for each individual family to have their own holiday celebrations as well. The typical menu includes fried chicken, fresh corn, green beans, and other country fixings. The first year I was invited to the annual Christmas Party, I brought homemade pumpkin pie made from my grandmother’s recipe.

My father-in-law’s family celebrates Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s together. Sometimes they have a potluck, other times they meet up at a restaurant so no one has to cook. One year when they had a potluck, I went all out and brought mini pumpkin and apple pies. For New Year’s, one of the siblings hosts a poker tournament.

My parents and younger sister celebrate with a traditional holiday meal—for example St. Patrick’s Day was corned beef and cabbage, Thanksgiving was turkey and our favorite fixings, and Christmas was ham and more fixings. Growing up, we all had busy schedules and we didn’t always get to eat dinner together. Holidays were special in that we all sat around the table and enjoyed a home-cooked meal together. Since I didn’t have aunts, uncles, and cousins close by, the meals were usually just for our family of four. Mom always made way too much food, and we would eat leftovers for what felt like forever.

After moving in together during college, we would host “New Thanksmas” at our first apartment and the home we built. New Thanksmas was our version of Friendsgiving that sometimes varied in dates between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. It was a chance for us to spend quality time with our friends before our public accounting jobs dove into the busiest time of the year. I would roast a turkey and a few basic sides while our friends pitched in their favorite foods from the holidays. Want to spread the cheer and host your own holiday event? Check out these holiday prep tips for the first time host!

One great thing about this year is that it’s looking like most of Trevor’s siblings might be able to get together for Thanksgiving. The siblings are scattered across Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, and Texas, so anytime they can get together is a blessing. I’m excited because not only do I get to see Trevor hang out with his siblings, nieces, and nephews, but I also get to enjoy their awesome cooking, which takes the pressure off me! I promise, I love cooking and experimenting in the kitchen, but it’s nice to have other capable people handle it. Trevor is much better at any other household task, so I take care of the cooking and meal planning.

It’s funny to see how much of how I enjoy holidays revolves around the food I get to share with those we hold dear. As we travel and eat our hearts out, maybe these tips for fitness through the holidays will come in handy—in the meantime, cheers to making new holiday traditions over the course of Trevor’s military career!

I would love to hear some of your holiday traditions and celebrations!