Celebrating Early

One of the biggest downsides of having a traveling spouse is all the special events they have to miss because of work. Jeremiah and I have been married for almost 14 years now and in those years he's missed many holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries. It never gets any easier either. Definitely something that has surprised me over the years.

There are many things we like to try doing to help "make up" for him being gone for special days. Recently our thing has been to celebrate early, or late depending on the date. I'm sure there are many out there that can relate to this. This past year he left the day after Thanksgiving and was gone until the first week of January so he of course missed Christmas. This is always tough but it's made even harder when you have children. Christmas is always a special time of year, but kids really make it magical! I hated the idea of my kids waking up Christmas morning and not being able to share their joyous smiles with their dad in person. Thank goodness for FaceTime! So our family Christmas was done in the middle of November before he left. We were that family that had our tree up before Thanksgiving and we enjoyed all of our family traditions early. Right down to the spiced wine while decorating the tree.

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To the kids it was the greatest thing. All they knew was they were getting presents early!

As moms we try our best to make it an easier time for them when the day rolls around and they are faced with the fact that dad isn't there. This Christmas my parents came in and we took the kids to a cabin in the mountains for the week. They had a blast with all the fun "cabin" things to do. Although they missed dad very much they were relieved that Santa at least found them in the cabin.

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My middle child, Cole, has a birthday at the end of January and of course dad will be on a trip over the actual day. So we are back to celebrating early to make sure he feels just as special as he is. Even though dad won't be there. He walked in the door from school today and we had planned a little family surprise party. He got chocolate cake and presents before even taking off his back pack.

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The fun thing about celebrating early is it seems to be one extended celebration. We've got something planned almost every day in the name of his birthday until dad leaves. The biggest being Legoland! Then of course he'll still have a small celebration on his actual birthday just sans dad.

The good news is kids are resilient. I've found it seems to be harder on us than it is on them. We seem to beat ourselves up for missing these special occasions when in their reality what makes it special isn't the actual day, but the effort that goes into celebrating and making them feel important. Regardless of what day the calendar says.

#Missingspecialevents