I will always be the first to admit that I don’t care very much about the holidays. I don’t subscribe to any particular religion and therefore don’t care much about the religious aspects of the holidays, whether Christmas or Channukah or Kwanzaa or Yule. And since we don’t have children, I don’t really care a whole lot about the secular aspects of the holidays, although I do like looking at the light displays on peoples’ homes and I do exchange cards with friends and loved ones.
Although we don’t celebrate Christmas ourselves, we’ve created our own holiday tradition – bringing a little bit of holiday joy to others. Since 2007, we’ve piled into our car each Christmas Eve with the dogs, dressed for the occasion, as well as an assortment of Christmas gift bags containing cookies and candies, and driven to the military base where we’ve been stationed at the time to bring a little bit of the holiday spirit to those unlucky soldiers who spent their holidays on CQ (charge of quarters) duty.
Ollie and Ronja helped make the gift bags.
Last year, Brian was deployed, so I enlisted the help of my friends Sandra and Jess, with their dogs, German Shepherd Indra and Shiloh Shepherd Max. This year, Brian was home but Sandra’s husband is deployed, so we once again met up with Sandra and, this time, her Shepherd Nala, before heading out to visit the CQ’s.
As always, the dogs and gift bags were a hit. We made our rounds through various brigade headquarters, stopped in to some of the barracks, and even visited the division headquarters and the Provost Marshal’s office. The Soldiers had a blast playing tug with Nala and getting hugs and cuddles from Ronja.
Hugs - Ronja's favorite thing.
Nala enjoyed her game of tug.
More cuddles for Ronja, who climbed right up into his lap.
And more tuggies for Nala, who never tires of this game.
