Mandatory Fun

‘Tis the season for mandatory fun. This time of year brings FRG potlucks, coffee group white elephant exchanges, and all sorts of other renditions of the same. Some are even our service member’s “place of duty” during the event. So, that means they either go alone, toting our mini cheesecakes with them and a potted plant for the gift exchange, or it means we go, too—kids and all.

In my early years as a milspouse, this time of year used to make me grumpy and resentful.

“Why am I spending what little money we have on some random gift for someone we hardly know, let alone care about?”

“A Wednesday night? Why do I want to go to a ‘party’ on a Wednesday night? Don’t they care about all the working spouses out there? What about the kids’ schedules? Blah.”

It all made me cranky. By the time I made it to said function, I had already built up this wall of “I’m too busy and important to be here with you people.” It made for interesting holiday festivities, usually ending with me sitting in a corner of a company HQ or a motor pool, fuming and feeling sorry for myself.

Merry freaking Christmas.

It started to creep in again this year.

My husband has recently been placed on recruiting duty, which means our company is spread out between two states, and very few families have ever even met, let alone interacted. FRG meetings are via teleconference. It is all very strange and foreign to me.

So, when my husband came home telling me that the company Christmas party was coming and we needed to bring a dish and a white elephant gift, those old resentful feelings started bubbling. I didn’t want to cook for strangers that I would never be able to build a relationship with because they lived three hours away. I didn’t want to drive an hour with the kids in toe to spend three hours with people we don’t know.

Why would I want to do that?

Then, I remembered those Christmas parties during the deployments. I remembered those times when, friends or not, we gathered together because we had a common bond of a hard life experience, and we commiserated together. We moaned and griped. We laughed and ate. It was actually fun. Sometimes those parties really do make you a friend or two. Not always, but sometimes, even if it is just a connection of concern for one another during a time of need.

Mandatory fun can bring you together. And no, you don’t need to spend a hundred dollars on a white elephant gift. Go to the Dollar Store or make something. A bag of cookies is always enjoyed by someone, right?

So, I have decided. I have decided we are going to join my husband at his “place of duty” for the FRG Christmas potluck. We are going to meet his fellow soldiers and their families. My kids are going to meet and play with other kids in the same boat they are. We may be forced together, but maybe, just maybe, I will make a friend or two. That is totally worth my time baking a pound cake. Who knows what can come out of a homemade pound cake and a Hello Kitty Chia Pet, but I am betting I won’t be sitting in the corner fuming this year, and that is also worth the price of admission.

Happy Holidays, everyone! Enjoy whatever form of mandatory fun you will be experiencing and look for the sparkle in it, not the hassle. You may even get to see your service member’s CO dressed in an ill-fitting Santa suit, and who doesn’t want photographic proof of that?

How do you make the most of mandatory fun? Share with us!