The Pros & Cons Of Christmastime R & R

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I thought I would share some Pros and Cons about scheduling R&R during the Christmas/New Year holidays like we did. It definitely has some good things about it and some challenging things as well. Hopefully this will be helpful for those of you who are just starting a one-year deployment in late summer because your R and R will likely fall around the holidays and you'll have this info when your service member applies for leave.

Pros

1) It was great to have my husband here while our daughter was out of school for Christmas break. She missed one day of school on the day he came home. Then he left two days before she went back to school in January. We were really torn about trying to avoid doing R and R during the holidays or doing it then so she was out of school. That worked out well for us so she didn't have to miss much school. 

2) It was great to be able to celebrate the biggest holidays of the year as a family. We were able to visit extended family in wintry weather too. I was glad I never had to feel sadness about us not being together for Christmas.

3) It was right in the middle of our deployment, so when R and R was done, we had a little less than half way to go. That was comforting to know we were on the downhill side when he went back.

4) Transitioning into the new year after he went back to Afghanistan seemed natural and kept us busy. Once he left we had to regroup to return to our weekly school schedule just as everyone else was regrouping from the holidays - basically doing the same thing. That made the transition a lot easier.

Cons

1) We wanted to take a real vacation together as a family or meet him in a vacation spot like Hawaii. Unfortunately at that time of year the prices are double what they normally are at vacation destinations. Hawaii was off the charts expensive and options were slim. Taking a nice vacation at twice the price just wasn't something we wanted to do as much as we would've loved to be away from home where we could all really relax.

2) Getting business done like doctor's appointments, banking, visits to government offices, etc. during two weeks where there were big holidays right in the middle of the week was a challenge. Lots of people were out of town or offices were closed. It made our schedule very tight on the few days where we could conduct critical business he needed to get done while he was home.

3) The holiday weeks are already hectic. Throwing in the stress of deployment R and R can up the stress and exhaustion quite a bit. We went to bed before eight on more than one night completely worn out. With all the celebrating and events it can feel like you are cheated out of quiet time together as a family. We had very little downtime over the two weeks.

4) Places tend to be a lot busier during the holidays and there is a lot more traffic. With everyone off work everywhere we tried to go was extra busy which made things slow. Not great when your time is limited and you're already exhausted.

So those are my major Pros and Cons of having R and R during the Christmas season. Any time you have R and R is fantastic. I hope these ideas will help you decide if it's something you want to try for. For you other military families who've done R and R, have you tried holiday leave and how did it go? Or did you chose to do it another time instead. I love hearing about your experiences.

Thanks for coming by!