Keeping Your Peace this Holiday Season
by Kristen Day
As a military family, “the most wonderful time of the year” can quickly become the most chaotic time of year. Whether it’s navigating the holidays solo due to a deployment, managing the financial stress of the holidays after a recent PCS, or figuring out how to travel home when you live halfway across the world – military life stressors can quickly foil a peaceful holiday season. However, with planning and intentionality, you can take steps to restore the magic of your holiday season.
Setting Travel Plans
When you live halfway across the country or world, setting travel plans for the holidays can become overwhelming. Tackling the planning process as early as possible with your significant other in a low-stress environment (e.g., over breakfast with a nice cup of coffee), offers the perfect time to start planning. During the course of this conversation, discussing how you might be able to account for uncertainties can go a long way in quelling any anxieties about the upcoming holiday season. Depending on your circumstances, this may look like purchasing travel insurance or booking refundable flights or hotels.
If you are in a season of life where travel is off the table, extending an open invitation to loved ones to join you at your home can lead to a beautiful gathering and celebration. It offers an opportunity to bring extended family into your day-to-day life and make special memories in a new location. Extending an open invitation may also help to take any unspoken pressure that you and your family be the ones to travel off the table while still offering a chance to gather with loved ones.
Tapping into Financial Resources
There is no doubt that the holidays can be financially draining, especially when you are considering traveling halfway across the country or just finished a PCS. Luckily there are some resources military members have access to in order to cut down on expenses around the holiday.
Redeem credit-card points for airline tickets or hotels if you find yourselves traveling for the holidays.
Utilize military travel perks like free access to AMEX lounges with an AMEX card or visit a USO on a layover to cut down on food costs while traveling.
Leverage Active Military discounts to save money on gift or home purchases for this time of year.
Connecting with Community
The holiday season is the perfect time to host and gather your community to create shared memories and celebrate. Hosting can be as big or small, involved or hands-off as you want. For example, connecting with your community could look like inviting friends over for a pot-luck dinner, offering to make a brunch or dinner reservation for the military spouses at your base, or planning a group activity (e.g., painting, museum visit, pickleball) that loved ones can join.
Aside from hosting, the holiday season is also the perfect time to give back to your community through volunteering at your local food pantry, donating holiday gifts through programs run by local organizations, or contacting your local nursing homes for ways to show support to seniors who may experience loneliness during the holiday season. Oftentimes, it's these types of engagements that spark the true joy of the holidays.
Pouring Into Your Own Cup
During the holiday season, the magic can lay in slowing down and enjoying the stillness. Chatting with friends about what brings them joy during the holiday season may offer the perfect chance to discover new ways to pour into your own cup. After chatting with my own friends, here were some of the things we found bring us peace:
Trying out a new (or old) recipe: Creating your favorite home-made creamer, baking some fresh bread or trying out a treasured family recipe all offer ways to slow down and taste the holiday season. Bonus points for sharing with friends, coworkers, or neighbors!
Sitting in the stillness: Whether it's journaling, praying or meditating, carving out 10 minutes (ideally in the morning) for reflection and setting intentions for the day ahead can make all the difference.
Exercise: During the short fall and winter days, exercising is often the last thing you want to think about, but leaning into the coziness of the season by altering what types of workouts you tackle is helpful. Some ideas include: walking during the sunniest part of the day or at sunset, checking out the on-base schedule for yoga or meditation classes, or tapping into the saunas that are often provided at the on-base gym in the locker rooms.
Kristen Day currently lives in Enid, America, with her husband, an undergraduate Pilot Training Instructor at Vance AFB. She has a background in the public and nonprofit sectors, in which her work focuses on community resilience and development. She holds community near and dear in both her personal and professional life and enjoys serving on the Vance Spouses' Club Board and volunteering at her local library. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, hiking, reading, crocheting, and spending time with her dog, Smokey.