It is tough for sure being gone during special holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, the kid's different events, etc. However, it is not the end of the world. But you can be creative. Use the phone, use the video cam on your laptop. Plan an earlier or later date for a holiday or an event when you are home. Kids are flexible.They don't care if you celebrate their birthday or a Holiday on a different day so much in truth. I used to take for Christmas one gift form the kids and one from my wife with me on a trip. We'd open our gifts together on the phone on Christmas if I wasn't home. We'd share that. Same for a birthday. Even with a time change half way around the world, I'd make it work.
The kids would send me off with a tin of cookies or fudge or some kinda goodies to share with the crew. I'd send pics of where I was or what the city looked like. There are plenty of people traveling for many kinds business/work related trips on the Holidays. It was easy to find not only other crews but other travelers to spend time with, have a drink or a meal with. We used to do impromptu things like get some decorations last minute (once even a scrawny plant that we decorated and used at a Christmas tree lol) and create Christmas in one of our rooms for everyone, have food, some drinks, whatever we could come up with. If you find some service guys, buy them a meal, thank them and have a chat with them. I've had plenty of meals and even some sight seeing trips abroad with servicemen and women. Include them in your group, always. A few times, we visited an orphanage with a load of stuff we bought in the town we were in.
It just takes a positive mindset, a willing wife and kids and some creativity to make it work. You can build a string bond with your co-workers, keep the bond going at home even from a great distance and make a little adventure/decent time for yourself in the process. It just makes the homecoming all that more special and the time you are home more precious. It gives you a better perspective of what others around the globe endure, how they suffer, what they sacrifice and makes your situation not seem that bad, in truth. It's what you have/carry in your heart and mind that matters. We all knew that this is what our careers demand/entail, so I don't get the complaining/grumbling about it. Get a reality check and suck it up.
We tend to forget that thousands upon thousands of our military members that are having Christmas and all the other holidays, birthdays, anniversaries in often god forsaken places, in insecure/dangerous areas or places so incredibly remote or with terrible, unforgiving wx where they have no town to wander around and no restaurants/bars or shops or the opportunity be with other people. We will all be home again in a few days. They will not. And many of them will never return home or will never be the same mentally/emotionally or physically when they do. Yet, there they are, day after day doing their job without complaining and often without recognition. Military Moms and Dads often miss the birth of their children and a year or more of being with them and seeing them grow up. THAT is something to whine about. Yet they don't. When I think of that, I have nothing to whine about and neither should anyone else. I mean seriously........let's get a grip.
