Helpful Ideas for Your Holiday Care Package
Send Your Deployed Service Member a Care Package
The military holiday care package narrative is about deployed service members receiving personal packages in the mail from their loved ones back home. For the brave men and women who will be overseas and deployed during the holidays, such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, they will be monumentally grateful for anything that would be sent their way. Figuring out and choosing the contents to send in your holiday care package will be instrumental in helping you feel a lot closer to your loved ones. It’ll be tough for deployed military members to be away from their friends and family throughout the holidays, so it’s paramount to decide on the things that you can and should mail to military personnel in foreign destinations. Here are some supportive guidelines to follow for a holiday care package that will make any service member smile.
Reminder of Home
For the deployed; reminding them of home would give a welcome sense of comfort, especially during the holidays. The obvious, yet most important thing to include in his or her package are pictures from home. Plan on taking many pictures of friends, family, the house, pets, the neighborhood, etc.; any reminder of home is a good thing. You can either send the old-fashioned picture prints or load hundreds of photos and videos in a USB drive.
Love from Family and Friends
Another thing that can correlate with including pictures from home is sharing handwritten letters and drawings, thank you cards, sketches, personal messages and notes. Encourage the soldier’s relatives, friends, and children to create something on paper for them. There is no doubt on our minds that this action will affect them profoundly.
Taste of Home
There is nothing that will uplift the spirits of deployed soldiers like a small taste of something back home. A mother’s homemade goodies, delicious candies and snacks, canned food, powdered drink mix, nonperishables (beef jerky, packaged snacks, candies, cookies, tuna, chips), and meal enhancers (salt, mustard, ketchup, sauce packets) would be the optimal food & drink choices to include. Keep in mind the conditions that your loved one is stationed in. Some baked goods may not survive the temperature changes and the amount of time it takes for the package to be delivered. According to Heather Sweeney from Military.com, it’s better to mail out preserve desserts like cakes and brownies in jars to help keep it moist. Furthermore, please avoid sending chocolate if your soldier is stationed in a warm-to-hot climate, you wouldn’t want to send a chocolate puddle to your loved one for the holidays.
Good Entertainment
Do they love football? Do they love movies and books? When you’re on duty in a faraway country, it’s hard for one to get the entertainment that they are usually accustomed to. It’ll be good to include entertainment like DVDs, CDs, electronic games, magazines, books, crossword puzzles, games, recordings of games, a football, etc., just to provide your service members with some good entertainment whenever they have some downtime.
Essentials
As we are talking about sending a holiday care package to a faraway destination, we’ll need to suggest what essentials to include. Small, personal care products like toiletries would be very helpful to send. Depending on the part of the world that you’re sending the package to, the weather may be much colder over there. Gloves, cotton socks, beanies and hats will be extremely useful. Other necessities for soldiers may include flashlights, sunglasses, canteens, water bottles, bug sprays, sunblock and sand goggles.
Begin Your Shopping Here
Although we suggested many things to include in your military care package, ask your soldier what they need and want from home, then add a few more things just as a nice surprise. When it comes to searching for survival supplies, personal care items and clothing, The Surplus Store will have everything you need.