Hating the Holidays

It's officially "The Holidays" and I am finding out just how much they suck during a deployment. My husband I have both been really on edge the last week or two, which typically end up taking out on each other because no one else we know understands what it's like. We're trying our best to just get through Christmas and the New Year, and we know after that, there's only a few short months left. It's really depressing to be here during the Holidays without him. Everyone around me is so excited and joyful, and I just want it to be done and over with already. I look like the bad guy when I'm not excited to be doing Christmas cookies or when I stand outside the room that everyone else is opening presents in, but it's just hard to get into any of it. This year, Christmas feels like any other day of the year for us. It doesn't help it's currently 70 degrees in Virginia, which is just crazy. But I hate snow and the cold--especially when I'm alone--so I'm not sure if that's a bad thing or not. Maybe snow would help me get  more in the spirit. I guess it also doesn't help that I'm still doing a major school assignment, three weeks after the semester is over. That 100-200 page Teacher Work Sample is due tomorrow, and I'm steadily working on it. I'm just having a lot of trouble focusing. My brother is home, and it's likely the last time we'll see him before he deploys, there's Christmas shopping and get-togethers, there's still unpacking my apartment and packing for Hawaii, and there's just the overall suckiness of a deployment during the Holidays. I'm also starting to worry about how our marriage will fair during the reintegration this coming Spring. I guess that's always a fear for any couple going through a deployment, but it's especially tough when you haven't been able to live together before the deployment. So we'll be dealing with lots of new things all at once. I just want us to be able to be the same crazy, carefree couple we were before we ever had a deployment to stress over. I'm sure everything will be fine, but it's something I can't help but worry about. I want everything to be just as amazing as it was before April 2011, and if certain things have changed--which is inevitable--I want us to be able to learn how to incorporate those new things. We're definitely not the same people we were before he left. We're both a little more cynical, a little wiser, a little more stressed, and lot more tired, and I want us to be able to get rid of the negative effects of deployment, and then embrace the positive changes and growth we've had through it. I just have to keep praying that everything will be fine. It's never easy, but it's always worth it.