More than 60 years ago, U.S. troops were kind to a little boy in Heidelberg, Germany.

This year, he remembered them and repaid their kindness, in the form of $16.5 million worth of scholarships for military children.

Hans-Peter Wild, a billionaire who developed and marketed the citrus fruit drink, Capri Sun, donated the sum to the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation. The group provides financial support to children of Marine and Navy veterans to attend college.

Officials said the gift will be spread among 3,000 scholarship recipients over the next 10 years.

In an interview with the Washington Post, Wild said, “The American military saved Germany from the Nazis. They forget so quickly what the Americans have done for us.”

His aim is to remember that sacrifice by continuing to honor those who came to his nation’s aid.

“Education is the most important thing you can give a child,” Wild said. “While America has the best education in the world, it also has the most expensive education in the world. To help the children of Marines is a very good thing.”

The Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation has provided more than 35,000 scholarships to military children since it was founded in 1962. This year roughly 200 students will receive need-based aid ranging from $1,500 to $10,000 from Wild’s gift.

The donation is the largest the foundation has ever received.

To learn more about the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation, visit https://www.mcsf.org/

Being a military spouse makes you jaded.

You always assume your husband will come home too late for dinner. 

He will likely be deployed for your birthday.  Again.

He won’t get a promotion even when he deserves it.  He won’t get leave, even when he deserves it.  He won’t get to send e-mails or phone calls during deployments, even when he deserves it.

Granted, the Navy has been good to us.  I can’t complain.

Yes, he’s been deployed a ton.  But he’s had early promotions, and even though he’s missed Christmases and Thanksgivings and birthdays and anniversaries, he’s also been home for some.

It’s not all bad.

But he has missed a lot.  And there’s not a darn thing we can do about it.

So when he deployed just a few hours after the birth of our third child, I assumed that was it. 

We were lucky he had been here at all, and that was where our luck would run out. 

Or so I thought.

Until the day before Christmas Eve.

When I got a phone call from the man I was married to who was supposed to be under the ocean.

He was coming home.

For Christmas.

I was flabbergasted.

The opportunity arose, and because my husband is a good sailor, who has given his command a lot, and always does more than is asked of him, he was allowed to leave the deployment and take his paternity leave. 

His shipmates pushed for him to go, covered for him and took on his duties so he could leave.  They wanted him to go home and spend the holiday with the baby he had held for a few minutes before he had to leave him.

It was an amazing gift from the brothers he’s served for with for years.  Both he and I were touched beyond measure.

I can’t explain how rare this is.  In my husband’s command, this never happens.  In the submarine fleet, this never happens.  In the Navy, this pretty much never happens.

I had a few friends and even my 4-year-old ask me if Santa might surprise us all and bring him home.  I laughed, pushed it off, and tried to explain how that just doesn’t happen.

But, it did.  It did happen.

My husband came home for Christmas.

What an incredible treat and an incredible honor, and what a testament to this life we lead as we head into the new year.
 

New Year’s Eve is a time for renewal, celebration and, yes, those dreaded resolutions that everyone is always talking about. In my house, it’s an extra special time because it’s also when my husband and I got married.

Our wedding was on Dec. 30, 1990. Before you start doing the math in your head the answer is that we tied the knot 25 years ago today, perhaps before many of you reading this were even born. I am what you might refer to as a “senior spouse,” having been married to my husband for his entire Army career.

That wedding day seems like a long time ago. But the good thing about time is that it brings us the experiences and lessons and triumphs and defeats that make us who we are.

Trust me when I tell you this: Twenty-five years from now you will hardly recognize the person you are today. It’s hard to comprehend that so much living happens in a quarter-decade of an adult’s life.

Children are born and grown.  Pets are loved and lost. Parents pass away. Marriages and divorces happen. Friends come and go.

Through it all, we have the potential to become stronger and better and, if we’re really lucky, wiser.

If we let it, time shows us how to be the best version of ourselves.

This New Year’s, forget the resolutions. Salute yourself, past, present and future. And take this advice from someone doing the same:

If you have a career, don’t give it up. If you are lucky enough to have the choice to not work full-time, stay connected through part-time work, networking and professional organizations.

If you want to go back to school, do it. Your life is only going to get busier.

Travel. Live overseas. Embrace the diverse, wonderful people you meet along the way.

Be thrifty with your spending but not so much that you don’t have fun.

It’s OK to not “have it all,” at least not all at once. Give yourself a break if your life doesn’t seem perfect. Remember, it’s a work in progress.

Don’t give up on your family, your marriage, your dreams, yourself. Stay strong. Be proud. Focus on today, but remember to step back every once in a while, reflect on lessons learned and look at the road ahead.

This New Year’s, toast yourself. I’m pretty sure your next 25 years are going to be pretty awesome.

Words matter. And with social media, texting and other casual, short-cut means of communicating, professionals unknowingly use language that could cut short their careers. To keep your career on track, consider eliminating these four phrases from your workplace interactions, especially with the boss. 

“We tried that before and it didn’t work”

Nothing kills a productive meeting, brainstorming session or someone else’s excitement about an idea than a stick-in-the-mud who says: “We tried that before and it didn’t work.” Whether you say it to your boss or your peers, you aren’t doing anybody any favors. In fact, people may think you are uncooperative, lazy or uncreative. Others may be willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but it still isn’t helpful.

“That statement could contain useful information,” said Stevie Puckett, personal development consultant, “but it still requires the boss to dig a little for the details. It might be better to lead with what was learned from the last attempt.”

For example, why not say: The biggest difficulties we had last time around were a, b and c. This time, we could try x, y and z and see if that works better.

“Certain phrases demonstrate resistance,” Puckett said. “They put a stop to conversation unless the boss is willing to ask follow-up questions to dig for useful information.”

“I can’t”

When your boss and co-workers need you most, that’s the last thing they want to hear.  As children we learn to never utter those words and are encouraged to be confident in our abilities. As adults at work, it no longer comes across as a lack of confidence.

"I can't" more often delivers a vibe of "I could but it's too hard and I don't want to," Puckett said.

The message is clear: You won’t.

“That’s not possible”

Creative problem solving is a critical skill in today’s collaborative workplace. Your willingness to brainstorm and share ideas can make the difference in whether your boss sees you as an asset to projects that introduce new ideas or a change agent when things must be done differently.

"’That's not possible" is a very negative stance and a sure cue for a busy boss to move on to someone else for ideas,” Puckett said.

The boss probably won’t call on you when leadership is needed, either. If you can’t motivate yourself to get something done, surely you can’t be counted on to motivate others.

“I don’t have time/I have too much work”

Most of us have times when we feel overworked and underpaid, but only a fool would say out loud, and to the boss, “I don’t have time/I have too much work” to do what you are asking me to do.

What you are really saying is you don’t understand your role.

For example, your boss may be a generalist and has to look at the big picture when making decisions about what has to be done. It is very possible that he or she needs your expertise as a specialist to determine how to make it happen.

It is up to you to gain clarity from the boss. Then, together you can discuss priorities and resources. In other words, it’s almost never a matter of ‘if’ it will be done, it is a matter of ‘how’ it will be done.

“Strive to be one who helps keep momentum going forward with relevant information and fresh ideas and you are more likely to be kept in the loop for the long run,” Puckett said.

Want to lose weight? Learn a new language? Keep a cleaner house? Write a novel?

What is your New Year's Resolution?

The easy part is deciding. The hard part is following through.

And let's be honest, we're not experts at keeping resolutions either. Last year our staff made lots of resolutions. The easiest, or so we thought: one writer vowed to move the Elf on the Shelf every night during December. The result?

Elf:2  Staff writer: 0

No goal, no matter how small, is as easy as we think.

So, in an effort to help you and ourselves keep those resolutions this year, we've spanned the internet to find the best advice for keeping those promises to ourselves. We've listed the top five and included the link to the resources so you can prepare to do your best this year in keeping those resolutions!

1. Make one resolution at a time. Experts say composing a list of goals never work because of the amount of willpower and behavior changes that come with each resolution. Read the full article here: http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/10-ways-to-make-your-new-years-resolutions-stick

2. Be specific. Don't resolve to exercise more. Instead, resolve to take a spinning class Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Read the full article here: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/personal-finance/9-ways-to-keep-your-new-year-s-resolutions-1.aspx

3. Make your goals known. Join a support group, talk about it with your spouse or friends. The more support and cheerleaders you have, the better you will do. Read the full article here: http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/resolution.aspx

4. Don't rely on willpower. It doesn't work. Instead, document your efforts. Keep a journal. Celebrate when you reach smaller goals that build to your large goal. Read the full article here: http://www.sciencealert.com/how-to-keep-your-new-year-s-resolutions-according-to-science

5. Be kind to yourself. You will fail. You may take that extra piece of chocolate. Or skip the gym one day. Or throw your hands up in frustration. That is ok. Your entire plan is not destroyed. You are simply, human. Start again tomorrow. Read the full article here: http://time.com/4151909/new-year-2016-resolutions/

 Good luck and Happy New Year!

By Christine Cioppa

 Sitting at a desk all day for work and classes (on top of the sporadic noshing on snacks) sets many of us back with our weight goals. Now, the New Year is approaching and resolutions are being made for weight loss.

A Nielsen survey of the top 2015 New Years’ resolutions (from January of this year) found that “staying fit and healthy” and “losing weight” were the top two New Year’s resolutions (69 percent of people polled).

If losing weight or maintaining your fitness and health ranks as your top priority for 2016, here are some health sites to get you started, and more importantly, keep you on track.   

Assess Your Weight

Are you overweight? Underweight? Plug in your height and weight at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator to find out. http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/lose_wt/BMI/bmicalc.htm

Choose your Goal Weight

Once you know what your healthy weight range is (from the above BMI calculator), you can choose your goal weight. Plug in your goal weight and the number of days in which you’d like to reach that goal at the USDA’s SuperTracker calculator. You’ll find out how many calories you need per day to reach your goal, and then maintain it.  

https://www.supertracker.usda.gov/bwp/

Figure in Fitness

If you’re not into cutting calories, how about burning them off? The Calorie Control Council has an excellent calculator for tracking the calories you burn, based on activity.

http://caloriecontrol.org/healthy-weight-tool-kit/get-moving-calculator/

Track Your Goals for Free

Now keep track of everything you’re doing. Load your top five goals into the USDA’s SuperTracker site and monitor how you’re doing with:

*Weight Management

*Physical Activity

*Calories

*Foods (See if your diet has imbalances across food groups.)

*Nutrients (Need more Vitamin D? Iron?)

https://www.supertracker.usda.gov/mytop5goals.aspx

Wishing you a healthy and happy 2016!

My birthday is 10 days before Christmas.

I am routinely and firmly a member of the December Birthday Club, where people try to pass off one gift for two separate occasions, or where people just forget to even celebrate it, amid all the other holiday hustle and bustle.

This has worked well for me as an adult, though, because it sets pretty low expectations for the day.  Heck, this year I spent my birthday grocery shopping, taking my oldest to afternoon piano lessons, and letting my kids watch all the Christmas movies while I snuck into my room to eat my vegan carrot-cake cupcake alone and in peace.

And that was after the 79 Facebook notifications where people had lovingly wished me a good one; without those, I may very well have forgotten it myself.

I didn’t hear from my husband that day; I didn’t expect to.  I didn’t get a present or a bouquet in the mail.  I didn’t expect to.  Has he sent things for the holidays and special occasions before?  He has, indeed.

In fact, he sent a gorgeous bouquet for Thanksgiving just last month.

But he is, without a doubt, woefully inconsistent about making sure little things show up on the right occasion.

The good news is, he’s notorious for sending me little gifts and flowers and notes for no reason at all. So, I’ll keep him.

I know I won’t have a Christmas gift this year.  I’m OK with it. 

So I was a little shocked when, a few days ago, I was driving around with all three kids in the car, looking at Christmas lights after a late Saturday dinner, when my oldest, just 4.5 years old, asked me, “Hey, Mom. What do you want for Christmas?”

I had no idea what to say to her.  I didn’t know how to explain I had settled on “Nothing” long ago.

Honestly, it was the first time anyone had asked me that in a long time, other than my mother, who specifically asks for the name, brand, price and location of a cast-iron pot I mentioned once, so, on Christmas morning, there is no real surprise.

It also wasn’t the fact that I didn’t know what I wanted.  It was just that I wasn’t sure how to place that burden on her.

So I lied.  I told her, “I need some new shoes, I think.”  And then I changed the subject.

I didn’t want to tell her that all I wanted for Christmas was her father.  That for all three Christmases he had been deployed, all I ever wanted was her father.

That doing the holiday thing without him was an act, a charade, a forced action to keep my kids joyous and celebratory and engaged in the season.

There is beauty in every holiday, whether he’s gone or not.  But there is an inherent sadness celebrating anything when he’s not home.

So, while this holiday will be filled with more memories we store away – memories we will tell him later – it will never be my favorite.  It will never have a story.

It will always be a “That was one of the Christmases you were gone, I think.”

So we hope and pray for next year.  For him to be home and happy with us.  So we can make a memory we talk about forever. 

So that Christmas stands a chance as the best Christmas ever.

By Samantha Carroll

We love celebrating the holidays with our soldier when he is home. We enjoy decorating, shopping and attractions that are fairly local. And often times, our families will come to us.

When he deploys though, I usually pack up the motorized sleigh with presents, dogs and our daughter and cover the miles spanning both sets of grandparents. The year 2012 was no different. My husband left on December 15, so with 10 days until Christmas, my 4-year-old daughter and I used that time to keep busy and prep for the craziest road trip yet.

My daughter was finally old enough to know about presents and the holidays so I had to plan carefully with packing gifts, especially Santa gifts.

We were spending Christmas that year in Florida with my sister-in-law and her family. First, we drove to north Georgia to visit my family. I managed to dig through the back of the car and find the first round of gifts needed there. We dropped off our dog and pointed the sleigh south.

We stopped into my in-laws just long enough to pick up my brother-in-law, grab some frozen pizza and snacks for dinner and head on. That night, we did laundry, ate frozen ridiculousness and re-packed the car. The next morning I hustled my excited daughter and my sleepy brother-in-law into the car and we headed south. My niece has a Christmas birthday, so we headed straight, or so we thought, to the bowling alley for her party.

My GPS sent me one way, my brother-in-law’s sent me a another, and soon, I found myself on the side of the road in a not so savory area of town in tears, worried we would miss the whole party. Amidst my stress, I’d forgotten about the third GPS in our presence, housed in my husband’s car I was driving. Smack forehead here.

 The good ‘ol Lincoln GPS took us where we needed to go and I feverishly scrambled through the pile of presents in the trunk to extract the birthday gift. After the party, another trunk scrambling ensued, to smuggle Santa toys, gifts and a life sized Barbie, who somehow managed to stay hidden, into the garage with my brother-in-law’s help.

The next day we ate dinner at a restaurant on Disney Resort property which was wonderful and bittersweet at the same time (our family loves Disney). Later, the girls played and fought and the adults shopped and baked. On Christmas Eve, we had dinner with my brother-in-law’s parents.

It was a big family Christmas which, again, was both wonderful and bittersweet. There were presents, S’mores by the fire and tons of love. My daughter fell asleep on the ride home which was perfect for me to stop, leave her in the car with my sister-in-law and run into Walgreens to grab the very last My Little Pony electric toothbrush that was on the list.

By some miracle we managed to get two excited little girls to sleep so Santa could get to work. I struggled with life-sized Barbie, wrapping her in brown paper and putting an Army return address on it, so she would know it was sent from daddy in Afghanistan. A Skype call from my soldier, a Christmas night cap and I could check Santa’s job off the list.

The next morning was fantastic Christmas chaos. The girls had a blast opening gifts and they even noticed the baking soda boot prints we put on the floor “from Santa.” We packed up and we were off to the Gaylord Palms for a Christmas Ice extravaganza courtesy of my in-laws. Again, another beautiful experience with family that echoed the bittersweet theme to due to the absence of my husband. The next day brought a Mcdonald’s drive through breakfast and the long trip to drop off the brother-in-law, get the dog . . . .

I don’t know how many miles I drove that Christmas. I do know that as per usual, I packed as much action into the holiday as I could because that’s our coping mechanism when our soldier is away. I also know it was one of the craziest and most fun holidays we’ve had, simply because we put our heart and soul into making things fun in spite of the deployment. I find those tend to be some of our fine

By Tiffany Shedd

I grew up with lots of Christmas traditions that all revolved around being with family, so as an adult I had a certain expectation of what Christmas was and what went on. Christmas can be a hard time, especially when you are a military family, because you’re often far away from family.

So, you can either lament those Christmas pasts that you’re missing or you can start making traditions of your own that you can carry with you wherever you may end up during the holiday season.

My parents always made a huge deal of Christmas. Santa always left tons of loot, and there were more presents on top of that. Mind you, we didn’t really get presents on a daily basis. We got birthday and Christmas. My parents made both of those occasions special for us. We would get excited about Christmas around November. We’d go through the Sears Catalog (I am dating myself here) and pick out all the toys we wanted Santa to bring us. We’d each write our letters to Santa, and my mom would mail them for us. Then the waiting began. I’d like to say we were patient about it, but we were kids so of course we weren’t.

Christmas eve was the worst as a kid. We’d go to church in the evening. Sitting through the short ceremony was torturous. It led up to the candle lighting ceremony at the end. This was thrilling and terrifying, once I was old enough to participate. We were each given a small candle with a paper ring around it to keep the wax from dripping on our fingers. These same candles and rings were used every year, so let’s just say they weren’t as snug fitting as when they were first used. I have very vivid memories of hot wax dripping onto my fingers and having to stay quiet and still even though I thought I was suffering from third degree burns.

After church we would go home and have dinner and get ready for bed. But before we were sent off to sleep, we got to open one present. The choosing of said present was quite the production. We’d pick them all up and weigh and shake to determine if it was clothes or a book or something boring. My parents would only put up with so much of our stalling, so eventually we’d just end up having to open whatever was in our hands. I frequently ended up opening something that wasn’t very exciting, because my family likes to reuse boxes from previous purchases that would seem similar to packaging of something I was looking forward to opening.

 We would finally go to bed and toss and turn most of the night trying to fall asleep. My siblings and I would wake up early and beg to go to the living room to see what Santa had brought us. We always started with our stockings, which as kids was difficult, because Santa didn’t wrap his gifts; they were just left unwrapped and on display, so we could immediately see if we’d gotten things from our list.

Once we got into our Santa loot, we’d have breakfast, usually broccoli and sausage quiche or sausage balls. Sausage balls were the best, because my dad only made them on Christmas. After we got bored with our Santa gifts, we started eyeing the wrapped gifts under the tree. My parents tried to slow us down in various ways over the years. We would have to take turns opening our gifts. One year, my dad came up with a complicated numbering system where there were only numbers on the gifts and he had to look up the numbers in a spreadsheet. I think he realized that was far more work for him that he wanted.

When we got older, we started having scavenger hunts for some gifts. We’d get hints and have to go searching around the house and sometimes even outside. The most memorable clue was hidden in the tank of our toilet. I think my parents had as much fun watching us frantically looking for the next clue as we had searching.

Around lunchtime we would head to my mom’s childhood home. When I was a kid, we lived in the same town as both sets of grandparents, so we had three Christmases in one day! How much fun is that?

We’d have the same food every year. I always looked forward to the apple salad and macaroni and cheese. After lunch, we’d open yet more presents. We would all be pretty tired at this point, and our excitement would be starting to wane. If we’d gotten toys that could play outside, this was usually when we’d get around to playing with those.

The adults would clean up or catch a few zzzzs on the couch while we were outside. Then, we would head over to my dad’s parent’s house around dinnertime and have another delicious meal. There would be a few more presents. I remember gorging myself on ribbon candy and cake. As we’d probably been awake since at least 5 a.m., we’d start to really be ready to call it a day.

This was our routine for my entire childhood, even when I went to college, it was still pretty much the same when I came home. Of course things changed, Santa didn’t really come anymore, we no longer lived in the same state as our family (but we usually went to see them regardless). We lost all of my grandparents by the time I graduated from college, but even with these significant life changes, it still felt like we carried on with most of our traditions.

I think that is why it was so hard for me, during my first Christmas being married. I had never been away from my family for Christmas. I was going through some significant life changes: I was newly married, we had just packed up all of our belongings and were moving across the country to Alaska, and I was spending Christmas with my husband’s family.

All of their traditions felt wrong and weird (of course they were not, they just weren’t what I was used to). I would love to say that I took it like an adult and smiled my way through it, but I cried and was probably unpleasant to be around.

It took me a few years to get used to not being with my family and enjoying our traditions. The next Christmas I tried creating some new traditions and adapting old ones to our new family. Now that we have a child, I look forward to creating more traditions with him and helping him create wonderful Christmas memories.

Once upon a time our family used to run from holiday event to holiday event.

We had to see the lights downtown. Uptown. Out of town.

We had to have cocoa with Santa, Rudolph and the Grinch, all at different venues and times. Then, some local brainiac decided this would be a fabulous time of year for a tea party with Elsa. Grrrrr.

There was ice skating here, cookie making there and ornament creating everywhere.

By the end of it all, I was ready to be done. Christmas had become a time of exhaustion, not joy.

And I knew I wasn't alone when my friend posted on his over-zealous for the holiday wife's Facebook page this sentiment: "Not to be a grinch, but I really hate Christmas. All it is, is work."

Yes.

Double and triple, yes.

So, we decided this year, to dial back Christmas. And it has been joyous.

We waited until the second week, my goodness, I know, the SECOND week of December, to get a Christmas tree. It took us three days to get it fully decorated.

I haven't made a single Christmas cookie yet. I know, I am killing some of you. Instead, we have made three kinds of, may I say, absolutely hilarious, Star Wars themed cookies.

And it was fun. They weren't perfect. Some of them looked kind of gross, but I wasn't worried about having so many dozen, for so many bags, to go to so many people. We just baked. 

We'll make some homemade ornaments, next week, when we get around to it. If we get around to it.

And the Christmas cards, they've been purchased, I have the stamps, but no one's world will collapse if our card arrives on December 26 or, dare I say it, January 1. In fact, we bought cards that say, "Happy  New Year" instead of "Merry Christmas" to allow for some wiggle room.

We stopped stressing over Christmas. We stopped worrying about Christmas.

And, it still came.

Our kids are excited. Our house is warm and cozy and joyful. We've had just as much fun and made just as many memories this year attending two events as opposed to years previous when we were out every single night.

And most importantly, none of us are ready for it to be over.

Relax. Enjoy your holiday. It makes it so much sweeter.