"Home" for the Holidays

Holiday Traditions took on a whole new definition after we joined the military.  For years, our holidays had the push and pull chaos that went with various family groups demanding our attention.  I am sure that all of you understand what I mean.  Quick, hurry and do your intimate family plans at home...and then RUSH to meet up with everyone else because it is expected of you.  I think you can tell that rushing around and pleasing everyone is not my idea of a good time.  Now, if these family gatherings happened on a day that was not Christmas Day, I would be happy as a clam.  New Years and Thanksgiving....I can live with that craziness.  But really....Christmas should be left alone.  For the first time in years, my wish was granted!

Please don't think I don't like family.  I LOVE family.  I adore the large family dinners that come with Thanksgiving.  Family recipes that are only used once a year are dusted off and prepared with love.  But it wasn't until after we went into the military that I was given the freedom to spread my wings and find our own!  With great joy, I discovered how to create a turkey that my guests would actually turn over and pick absolutely clean, despite weighing in a whopping 26 pounds.  My mother's Cranberry Jelly wouldn't have to compete with a can shaped mass of reddish-purple stuff.  It was with a lot of experimentation that I would create my signature Thanksgiving Pie that my daughter would talk about throughout the year, relishing the thought of both helping me make it and, subsequently, consuming it.  Until entering the military, my cooking skills were shoved to the nose bleed section by the older women in our family.

You see, I LOVE to cook.  I had been raised to know how to cook.  When I was 12 years old, I prepared my very first complete Thanksgiving dinner when my mother was ill.  I didn't learn how to cook when I got married.  By the time I tied the knot, I had over a decade of experience in the kitchen, and LOVED it.  There is nothing more pleasing than to see people sit back, with their eyes closed in ecstasy, as they eat food that I carefully prepared.  The military presented me with the ultimate environment in which to better my skills and learn new ones.

While we missed our family during the major holiday seasons, that distance gave us the perfect environment to immerse ourselves into our new community and military family.  We grew to love the motley mix that would gather during the holiday season.  Singles, couples, families...they would all come together to form a family that could laugh and talk with the best of them.  The thread that always came up at these gatherings were the various traditions that each brought to the table.  It was like having all of America under the same roof!  We would exchange recipes, laugh at blood family antics that always happened at holiday gatherings, and share memories that defined our love for those special occasions.  After a while, while we didn't travel to be with our blood family during those times, we grew to absolutely love our new tradition of spending that time with our military family.

I will never forget our first Christmas morning of our military career.  We had a wonderful dinner the night before, dropped cookies and treats off to our friends and military family, and tucked in for the night.  The next morning, I had put a dish in the oven and we enjoyed a quiet, laid back, Christmas Morning together.  Stockings, gifts, a good simple breakfast, and each other.  After a peaceful morning together, we called our families, and then took a dish to a quiet gathering we had been invited to.  I will never forget my engineer looking at me and saying, "this is one of the best Christmases I have ever had!"  It would be with great joy that we would make that peacefulness a tradition in our own home.

Another aspect of Military Christmas that I adore is the annual cookie drive.  Every year, the spouses organize a baking frenzy to supply single service members with freshly baked cookies.  Every location has a different name for it, but the goal is the same.  Our young singles live in dorms and typically can't afford to travel home for the holidays.  That very first year, when I heard about this military tradition, I fell in love!  With great care, I combed through my personal recipes and chose my mother's gingerbread cookie recipe to be my contribution every year.  This cookie is the BEST gingerbread I have every had...and I have had several.  It has the right amount of heat to it and is soft & chewy...yet maintains a beautiful form.  Knowing that this cookie converts gingerbread haters to lovers, I knew this had to be my choice every Christmas season. With gusto, I bake 15 to 25 dozen of these cookies every year for the base wide cookie drive.  To this day, it is one of my favorite parts of the holiday season.  It just wouldn't be Christmas without it.

Our Holiday traditions would continue to morph and grow as our time in the military increased.  The traditions gathered while in the Great White North would stay and more would be added with each subsequent move.  Base Christmas Tree Lightings, the Annual Cookie Drives, quiet and simple family time, and warm gatherings of "displaced persons" would become real parts of our heritage as a family that our children would look forward to every year.  While they may not be America's idea of a perfect family holiday, these all became such a treasured part of our lives that the idea of giving them up is not a savory one.  As long as we are all together, wherever we are at, we are Home for the Holidays.