House porch decorated for fall with pumpkins, hay bales, corn stalks, and a wreath on the front door.

Fall Decorating Tips for Military Housing

Written By Dawn Smith

There’s something — well, probably a lot of things — about the fall season that makes everyone giddy for cozy comfort at home, including those of us living in military housing. Although there are many perks to living on base, one of the common drawbacks military families talk about is the restriction on personalizing and decorating the property.

One of the ways to work within the housing guidelines is to install seasonal decorations. It’s the perfect way to customize your temporary home.

Starting in early September — or, if you’re like me, the last week of August — autumn mania takes over. I begin by incorporating bits of fall decor into my everyday style. Here are my suggestions for honoring your love for crispy leaves and dropping temperatures while living in military housing.

  1. Add your fall decorations layer by layer throughout September and October. You can stretch out the best season by installing your favorite decorations slowly for the biggest impact. In early September, focus on displaying fall trimmings such as leafy stairway swags that don’t include Halloween themes — save those for the first week of October. As soon as the last trick-or-treater is gone, it’s time to add in your festive Thanksgiving embellishments. Each month, your home will look just a little different.
  2. Use all your senses to add a fall vibe to your home. Interior design and decorating techniques are most effective when you include multiple senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch), so mix up how you incorporate fall adornments. Fall displays draped on your home’s focal points are a good starting point, but don’t forget to add your favorite autumn scents like apple and cinnamon from candles or outlet fragrance dispensers. Or, add chunky textured blankets to a comfortable reading nook. If you have self-control (I don’t!), a fun candy dish is the perfect way to indulge your sense of taste.
  3. Incorporate natural elements and upcycled finds. Take stock in items that you already own that double as fall-inspired decor. Baskets of any kind, such as harvest or antique tobacco baskets, quickly inject homey vibes. Use these to create centerpieces that include natural elements you can find during your neighborhood walks, like colored leaves, acorns, tall grass and other interesting finds. These projects are easy to recreate after each PCS, so there’s plenty of longevity. Don’t forget to check out your base’s thrift store or one of the many free or traditional yard sales that pop up on base in the summer and fall.
  4. Show off your beloved collections. Do you have a fall-themed collection that’s perfect for showing off? Any portable shelving system that you already own is the perfect place to highlight your prized possessions. Temporarily clear the existing pieces and add themed items like fall landscape photography, ceramic pumpkins, pottery or vintage fall-themed books to showcase the items you love the most.
  5. Decorate your favorite space. When we lived on Fort Meade, my favorite place was the long front porch. It was perfect for connecting with neighbors and watching the kids play. But, during the holidays, especially in the fall months, I loved to go all out. I hung wreaths, installed cornstalks, stacked hay bales and added fresh pumpkins and gourds as the weeks passed. They were perfect accompaniments to my black wooden rocking chairs and a primitive bucket bench that held firewood. The atmosphere was inviting, and the autumn atmosphere was perfect.

Military housing doesn’t have to be drab. It’s your home after all, so don’t let the big beige walls intimidate you; use easy resources like Pinterest to inspire you. Plenty of military spouses showcase their fall-inspired decor, so find ideas you like and turn your home into a festive retreat perfect for September, October and November.

Blog Brigade unites military spouses by creating a community built on shared experiences and mutual support. Navigating the complexities of military life can be challenging, but you don’t have to do it alone. Military OneSource offers valuable resources focused on well-being, readiness, and connection. Explore a range of moving resources and tools tailored to your needs.

Smiling family of six stands in front of a colorful mosaic tile wall; parents hold baby in carrier.

Embracing Autumn at Every Duty Station

Written By Lizann Lightfoot

Growing up in the Northeast, autumn was a spectacle of colorful leaves, crisp air, apple pie and pumpkin patches. It was a season I loved but took for granted. Military life changed that. After a decade of PCS moves to warm climates and overseas bases where fall was just another sunny day, I learned to cherish the small, fleeting joys of every season.

During our time in Spain, I missed pumpkin pie and jack-o-lanterns. In Southern California, I longed for crisp evenings, fire pits and the crunch of leaves underfoot. Military life, with its constant relocations and unpredictable separations, taught me to seek out and savor life’s simple moments, from seasonal traditions to everyday victories. You never know when a favorite food or tradition might be out of reach, so finding gratitude for the little things keeps you grounded, no matter where the next orders take you. As a military spouse, I’ve discovered that embracing these moments builds joy and memories that last across time zones and climates. Here are five strategies for military families to treasure life’s small moments, inspired by my journey through countless moves and seasons.

  • Create seasonal family traditions. Military families rarely stay in one place for long, so build traditions that can travel with you. Instead of relying on weather or location, focus on traditions like a special recipe (our chocolate chip cookies work anywhere), a craft like making colorful paper leaf wreaths, or watching a favorite movie together every fall. These repeatable moments create continuity for your kids or spouse, grounding everyone no matter the duty station.
  • Get creative to make your own vibe. Stationed somewhere without fall foliage or seasonal treats? Get resourceful. If you live overseas, you may have to stock up on pumpkin spice mix, canned pumpkin and cranberry sauce at the base commissary months in advance. You could also ask family to ship your favorite seasonal snacks. Where there’s a will, there’s a way to craft the seasonal vibe you crave, whether it’s stringing up fairy lights, playing a seasonal-themed playlist, or ordering candles with nostalgic scents.
  • Celebrate with others. If you’re missing an autumn tradition, chances are other military families are too. Connect with spouses or families through your service member’s unit or base community. Host a pumpkin decorating night or gather to watch a football game with snacks. At one warm duty station, I joined other spouses to bake pumpkin bread for Halloween, turning a lonely fall during deployment into a shared celebration that built friendships.
  • Don’t be afraid to start new traditions. Each duty station offers unique opportunities. When we lived in Southern Spain, autumn meant festival season, not falling leaves. We embraced local traditions: attending religious parades, dances with brightly colored dresses and horse shows. It wasn’t the Northeast autumn I knew, but diving into these new experiences created memories as rich as any apple orchard visit. Be open to what your new home offers. It might become a cherished memory, and who knows when you’ll get to repeat it?
  • Create ways to capture memories. Speaking of cherished memories, military families need creative ways to capture their unique experiences! Tangible mementos help you carry joy from one duty station to the next. Collect small souvenirs like a festival ticket or a pressed leaf from a local park. Create a photo album for each season or build a memory wall with postcards and snapshots. We have a collage wall of small, framed images we collected in Europe. We have set it up in four different houses now, using different configurations each time depending on the home layout. The result is always a treasured wall of places we enjoyed visiting together.
  • Finding joy in the journey. These strategies are about cultivating gratitude for each season and for life’s small moments. It’s a skill the military helped me develop through every move and deployment. Whether you’re savoring a familiar recipe in a new kitchen or discovering a local festival with new friends, these acts of celebration keep you ready for the challenges of military life. They also build community, connecting you with others who share this journey.

Next time you’re stationed far from the autumns or traditions you love, lean into these ideas. Find one small thing to celebrate — a meal, a gathering, a new event — and make it a joyful memory. Here’s to treasuring every moment, wherever military life takes you!

Blog Brigade unites military spouses by creating a community built on shared experiences and mutual support. Navigating the complexities of military life can be challenging, but you don’t have to do it alone. Military OneSource offers valuable resources focused on well-being, readiness, and connection. Explore a range of moving resources and tools tailored to your needs.

Kristi stands next to historic statues and large framed paintings on the walls behind her.

Now and Then: The Shift in Military Spouse Culture

Written By Kristi Stolzenberg

Having teenagers is a great way to make sure we’re reminded daily that we are old. I often tell my kids what life was like before the internet, that phones used to be used for (collective gasp) phone calls … on landlines, and that before GPS, we used to have to print our directions. If we got lost, we had to manually roll down our window to ask for help.

All the advancements we’ve seen in our lifetime are truly wild when you think about it, even though we don’t always notice it. Military spouse life has also evolved to keep pace with the world outside the gates. When “change” arises in a conversation about the military, people are usually talking about PCSing, policy updates, new technology, or whether it’s time to roll sleeves up or down (maybe that’s just a Marine Corps thing — add that to the list of things I should know by now). Our spouse community itself has changed quite a bit too. What I picture when I hear “military spouse” and the way we support each other and ourselves — it all looks much different than it did when I got here in 2008.

Kristi and her husband pose in a tree-lined park.

Who’s in Charge Here?

Here’s a scary story for all you youngsters: I once showed up to spouse social events without knowing a single other person. My little introverted heart started racing just typing that. When our spouses checked into their new unit after a PCS, they would add us to a spouse distro list when they met the FRO (Family Readiness Officer, a full-time civilian, who largely replaced the volunteer system of Key Volunteers). Each unit had an FRO, and he or she would send out regular emails and invites to spouse and unit functions, and we just went — usually with some predetermined potluck dish in tow.

This transition from a volunteer network to an FRO was cool because it took a lot of responsibility off the shoulders of spouses, which freed up time to pursue a career, an education or volunteer elsewhere. Now that the FRO program has sunset, we lean on DRCs and URCs (Deployment Readiness Coordinators and Uniformed Readiness Coordinators) for communication and family readiness. Not every unit gets a DRC, and the URC is not necessarily the first person a spouse in need of support is going to turn to. I’ve personally noticed a shift away from FROs; in fact, I wrote my master’s thesis on the topic. Once again, much of the initiative to create a community is in the hands of spouses, but many spouses now work, are focused on raising a family or are furthering their education. We’re all busy in our own way and not necessarily dependent on or interested in connection through our spouse’s job. If we are, we don’t have to wait for a weekly email; we have social media now.

Social Skills

Social media, particularly social groups, has made it possible to meet people at a duty station before even arriving. With our last few moves, I was able to browse social groups for answers to questions like, What’s the best school district? What is base housing like? Should I pack [fill in the blank]?

I see spouses in our area now reaching out locally to set up playdates for their kids, book clubs, coffee meetups and running groups. They go on social media to ask questions about policies and benefits, and yes, sometimes to vent (this should always be done respectfully and safely). Connection is easier than ever, and spouses can create a community without facing the anxiety of showing up alone to an event of total strangers. Social media also keeps us in touch long after parting ways.

Speaking of staying in touch, how could I write a blog about nearly two decades of evolving military spouse life without talking about deployment communications? Anyone else remember those spotting video calls? Thank goodness communication has advanced.

Kristi cuts sheet cake using ceremonial sword.

Real Talk

Over the last several years, I’ve had a falling out with the word “resilient” because it’s been used for so long to describe military spouses and kids who continually persevere through challenges without complaint or help. I’m proud of our generation of military spouses because we’ve honestly redefined resilience; we took the silence out of it. We talk honestly about being burnt out, homesickness, infertility, mental health and gaps in support. We ask for help when we need it, we speak out for better policies, and we have just normalized talking about both the ups and the downs of this very unique and often stressful lifestyle.

Transitioning Culture

If you’ve read any of my previous blogs, you know I love talking about my grandma and how different her experience as a military spouse was decades ago. I have so much respect for the generations of spouses that came before us. They truly did more with less, and I count myself very lucky to have access to so much support, fellow spouses who welcome a real conversation, and the freedom to decline a unit event without worrying my husband’s career will take a hit.

It might not be an easy task to evolve while staying rooted in transition, but hey, we do a lot of things that aren’t easy. This military spouse life will keep growing to fit the needs of the community, and I’ll be looking back, cheering on the next generation who will, like my teenagers, probably make me feel old when I recall FROs and meeting “IRL” (in real life) at a unit spouse meeting where I showed up alone as the new girl.

Blog Brigade unites military spouses by creating a community built on shared experiences and mutual support. Navigating the complexities of military life can be challenging, but you don’t have to do it alone. Military OneSource offers valuable resources focused on well-being, readiness, and connection. Explore a range of retirement resources and tools tailored to your needs.

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