Did you Make a Resolution? Here's How to Make it Stick!

Want to lose weight? Learn a new language? Keep a cleaner house? Write a novel?

What is your New Year's Resolution?

The easy part is deciding. The hard part is following through.

And let's be honest, we're not experts at keeping resolutions either. Last year our staff made lots of resolutions. The easiest, or so we thought: one writer vowed to move the Elf on the Shelf every night during December. The result?

Elf:2  Staff writer: 0

No goal, no matter how small, is as easy as we think.


All I want for Christmas Is

My birthday is 10 days before Christmas.

I am routinely and firmly a member of the December Birthday Club, where people try to pass off one gift for two separate occasions, or where people just forget to even celebrate it, amid all the other holiday hustle and bustle.


Christmas – Deployment Style

By Samantha Carroll

We love celebrating the holidays with our soldier when he is home. We enjoy decorating, shopping and attractions that are fairly local. And often times, our families will come to us.

When he deploys though, I usually pack up the motorized sleigh with presents, dogs and our daughter and cover the miles spanning both sets of grandparents. The year 2012 was no different. My husband left on December 15, so with 10 days until Christmas, my 4-year-old daughter and I used that time to keep busy and prep for the craziest road trip yet.


Young Spouses Misses Family Holiday Traditions, Creates Her Own

By Tiffany Shedd

I grew up with lots of Christmas traditions that all revolved around being with family, so as an adult I had a certain expectation of what Christmas was and what went on. Christmas can be a hard time, especially when you are a military family, because you’re often far away from family.

So, you can either lament those Christmas pasts that you’re missing or you can start making traditions of your own that you can carry with you wherever you may end up during the holiday season.


R-E-L-A-X

Once upon a time our family used to run from holiday event to holiday event.

We had to see the lights downtown. Uptown. Out of town.

We had to have cocoa with Santa, Rudolph and the Grinch, all at different venues and times. Then, some local brainiac decided this would be a fabulous time of year for a tea party with Elsa. Grrrrr.

There was ice skating here, cookie making there and ornament creating everywhere.

By the end of it all, I was ready to be done. Christmas had become a time of exhaustion, not joy.


Don’t Let Workplace Gift Giving Go Awry

The holidays can be a festive time of year, even at work. Until, gift giving goes awry. So, to keep everything cheery and lighthearted, be proactive with a little thoughtfulness and pre-planning.

For starters, “Choose gifts that are appropriate from a financial standpoint and for people you don’t know,” said Kim Zoller, CEO and founder of Image Dynamics.


Need to Mail Gifts and Cards? Deadlines Loom for Christmas Delivery

Christmas is still nearly four weeks away. Plenty of time to bake, shop and make plans.

But, if you are mailing cards and gifts, your deadline is now. If those gifts are going overseas, your deadline was last week.

While the U.S. Postal Service can still guarantee delivery by Christmas Eve for domestic items, overseas shipments, especially those going to forward deployed troops, need to be sent asap.

Here are your deadlines:


We Are Thankful: Have Corn Pudding, Will Travel

My husband has spent many a Thanksgiving underwater.

Being a submariner, duty doesn’t stop for holidays.  So he’s deployed for so many turkey days – eating government issued stuffing and cranberry sauce with his fellow shipmates – that I often lose count.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday; I love food, and I love my family.

I have a series of rather sad photos, commemorating our Thanksgivings, most of which he is missing in.

And, sure, it’s sad.


We Are Thankful: Every Thanksgiving is the Best Thanksgiving Ever

During our past 26 years as a military family, we have learned that after all the ‘firsts’ - the first Thanksgiving of our marriage, the first one with one child, the first one with two children, the first return from deployment, the best Thanksgiving ever is always the one right in front of us.


We Are Thankful: A Sugar Glider Holiday

I can’t say for certain when we all actually first noticed it, but I’m pretty sure it was around the time we’d all really gotten into eating our side dishes.

At least, that’s when I noticed it. I remember reaching for the salt, and stopped with my hand mid-air. The salt was forgotten the moment I realized that my best friend’s cousin (we’ll call her BFC) was feeding teeny bits of her Thanksgiving dinner to a tiny, furry face in her cleavage.

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