Friends celebrating with sparklers

A Chosen Family

Written By Tanecia Favors

When you move to a new place, there’s always a bit of uncertainty about what to expect. It can be challenging when you’re adjusting to a new environment without the familiar comfort of family or friends nearby. The saying, “This life will show you how strong you are,” rings true. Life changes often reveal how lonely transitions can truly be. When you find your “chosen family” or true friends, cherish that connection.

We all know PCS season will scatter you to different corners of the world. My chosen family snuck up on me. I thought, “Oh, they seem nice, it’ll be cool to have work friends.” Those work friends turned into Sunday brunch friends and the next thing I knew they were my actual friends. For once, I could put down a “real” friend as my kid’s emergency contact at school (versus the neighbor I met at the block party a few days ago).

What if you recently PCS’d, had a baby 21 days later and you know absolutely no one in a brand new place? How do you start over when your only friends are at your last duty station? Honestly, you take it one day at a time, one interaction at a time. Leave yourself open to the possibilities of finding new friends. I’d prepare to have solo experiences only to find myself leaving with a new friend or an exchange of numbers. Sometimes it doesn’t work out but sometimes it does.

I found myself having my first ever adult birthday party at 34 years old and 10 people showed up for me just because. Honestly, I’ll never get over that. Having my chosen family, my tribe, show up for me like that was one of the best experiences of my life. I felt seen and special, like I’d found my people in this life that takes you so far away from home.

So, to my alphabet soup of a family, thank you so much for choosing me and allowing me to choose you. No matter where the winds of PCS take us, I’m excited to catch flights and experience this life and all that comes after with y’all. To those who find themselves “in this life,” whether a new or seasoned MilSpouse, I hope you find your chosen family and they fill your life with all the love and support friends are supposed to. Our chosen families are all that and a bag of chips, simply because we choose to show up for each other.

Kristi’s children on a boat

Three Options for a Nontraditional Thanksgiving

Written By Kristi Stolzenberg

Imagine you PCS’d in August and are just now disposing of the last few moving boxes and bits of packing paper. You breathe a sigh of relief — you’re home and getting settled in. Then suddenly you start hearing from family members wondering if you’re coming home for Thanksgiving. Or they let you know they’d like to visit you for Thanksgiving. At the exchange, you notice the place is brimming with holiday décor, and it’s not even Halloween yet. Your PCS stress may be fading, but holiday stress is beginning to brew.

Whether worn out from your recent PCS, tied down by duty schedules or deployments, or separated by more miles than you could travel over the holiday weekend, the idea of “going home” for Thanksgiving — or having home come to you — can feel as far-fetched as a Hallmark movie plot.

If traveling home feels out of reach this year — or if the military has decided for you — there are still ways to celebrate that can either tide you over until next year or even become your new Thanksgiving tradition.

Kristi and her husband

Regional Travel

This is a personal favorite of mine. You’re probably thinking, “If we can’t travel home, how could we travel anywhere else?” Valid, but let’s say you’re stationed overseas or on the other side of the country from family. While traveling hundreds or thousands of miles may not be possible, a trip an hour or two away is manageable — especially during school and work breaks.

During the Thanksgiving holiday, our family traveled to Sonoma, California, while stationed in California; Vietnam and Thailand while stationed in Japan; and a tiny mountain town in West Virginia while stationed in Virginia. These trips are among some of my favorite Thanksgivings — exploring new places with my favorite people and no dry turkey in sight. If there’s a nearby destination calling your name, give this a try. If you really miss the Thanksgiving spread, you can make it any other day of the year — it’s allowed, I promise.

Kristi’s children petting elephants

Friendsgiving

Friendsgiving is like a traditional Thanksgiving, but it’s celebrated with friends who can’t be with their families. The group might decide to have a full Thanksgiving meal potluck-style, dine out at a restaurant, or just get together for dessert.

While the rest of the world might see this as a strange concept, in the military we know all about the “family we choose.” We bond with our military family over separations, PCS’s, and other military-life headaches, both large and small. Our military family is a perk of our lifestyle you won’t see on a Leave and Earning Statement. These deep friendships are often the reason we look back on a duty station as “the good old days.”

Spending a holiday with friends at your duty station is convenient and can be much easier than going home for turkey day. Your military friends know what you’re going through — the highlights and the stressors — so conversation can flow significantly smoother than explaining to a relative you only see every couple of years why you don’t know where you’re moving next.

The Thanksgiving when our family wasn’t jet-setting in Japan, we attended a Friendsgiving. Believe me, I went heels dragging, but that gathering is something that puts a smile on my face when I think back. There’s just nothing like a group of people — all in the same boat, far from home — coming together, enjoying the tastes of home, making memories together, and finding more than enough to be thankful for. If you’ve got a group of friends, large or small, sticking around for Thanksgiving, toss the idea out there!

Kristi’s daughter making festive Thanksgiving cookies

Celebrating Solo

At first glance, celebrating any holiday alone, whether it’s just you, your immediate family, or your family minus your service member, sounds sad, right? Especially a holiday that includes the amount of side dishes Thanksgiving brings to the table. (I have to slip the puns in; I just do.) Let’s find the silver lining in this situation because, as we know better than most, sometimes facing a holiday alone is the only option.

As is the mantra of military life, it’s what you make it, so if you’re spending Thanksgiving solo, make it count by trying something new. Attend a local event, take a hike, volunteer, drop food off at the barracks or service members on duty, or just make it a day of your favorite things — foods, movies, you name it! You can always make plans to celebrate earlier or later when you can have friends or family with you.

There’s Always Next Year

The one constant of military life is change. If whatever nontraditional Thanksgiving option you try this year doesn’t pan out, try something different next year. However you spend the day, make it memorable, and remember that there’s always something to be thankful for. On this wild ride, I’m thankful for the friends who feel like family that we’ve made along the way and the incredible places the Marine Corps has allowed us to explore. These gifts make it hard to complain about the solo holidays (though I find a way, never fear) and missing “home.”

 

Flowers and muffins

Ways to Make Meal Planning and Grocery Shopping Simple

Written By Sydney Smith

I think it is safe to say that all of us military spouses (and everyone else, for that matter) are feeling the effects of inflation more and more with each passing month. For our family, this is the highest income we have ever received; yet, at the same time, we are on the tightest budget we’ve ever been on. If you’re like me, you know how easy it is to go over budget in a variety of categories throughout the month — especially food. In a desperate attempt to cut back on our food spending, I find myself continually reshaping my meal planning and grocery shopping habits every month. I want to share a few things that have really worked for us in keeping things simple while simultaneously meeting the needs of our family of five as well as the needs of our budget.

  1. Plan meals monthly vs. weekly. I keep a template on my computer for monthly meal planning. I not only plan dinners for every night of the week, but I also plan breakfast, lunch and even snacks. This allows me to plan for variety but also make sure to efficiently buy ingredients that can be used for multiple purposes throughout the month. I am quick to get burnt out on meal planning when I’m doing it every single week. I’d rather just sit down for an hour once a month and not have to think about it again for several weeks. It can be daunting to do but is always worth the effort.
  2. Take inventory of what you have at the beginning of the month. Instead of thinking of a month’s worth of meals all off the top of my head, I will first take a trip to my pantry and refrigerator. I will get out a notebook and make a list of the meats and dry goods I already have on hand and come up with as many meals as I can with those things. For instance, maybe I have a frozen lasagna I never cooked last month, or a pound of ground beef left, some dry pasta and canned goods. I can usually come up with at least a weeks’ worth of meals from my inventory at the beginning of each month, and the ingredients we already have can be helpful prompts throughout the meal planning process.
  3. Make weekly themes. This is one of my best strategies for simple meal planning. Pick a theme for each day of the week: Pasta Monday, Taco Tuesday, Crock Pot Wednesday, Leftovers Thursday, Pizza Friday, Sheet Pan Saturday, Soup Sunday. These are some of our favorites. By doing this, you only have to come up with 4-5 meals per category to plan out your entire month.
  4. Limit the number of stores you go to. This is a huge money saver. It is true that the more stores you go to, the more money you will spend. Personally, I like to buy as much as we can in bulk at a warehouse store and get the remaining items we need from a grocery store that delivers. Even though you may have to pay a small delivery fee or tip, I find that ordering groceries online saves us money because then I’m not tempted to buy things that weren’t on my list.
  5. Never go to the store without a list. While I’m impressed by people who do this (go to the store without a list), I also know it’s not the most efficient way to stock up on the things you need. If you don’t bring a list, you will most likely forget things, and therefore have to go back again, which will most likely result in you buying more things that you wouldn’t have bought in the first place.
  6. Keep a running list of staple dinners or recipes you want to try. I keep a list on my phone of our favorite easy weeknight dinners to keep on the monthly rotation. A lot of these rotating meals change with the seasons. For instance, I do a lot more crockpot and soup recipes during the colder months and a lot more grilling in the summer. I am often inspired by friends or social media to try new recipes, and I keep a list of these as well, for quick ideas I can refer to when it’s time to plan meals again. Having this list on hand makes the monthly meal planning process quick and effortless.

These are just some simple strategies that work for our family, and I hope some of these ideas will come in handy for your family as well! Consistency and creativity are both key in sticking to a grocery budget, and I promise that with a little practice, you can do it too!

 

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