My Hot Oil Man will be gone for Christmas. That’s nothing new. Some years he’s here, and some years he’s not. It doesn’t even bother me. We will celebrate when he gets home a few days after Christmas and that’s fine by me. In the past we’ve celebrated early, we’ve celebrated late… we celebrate whenever we’re together. That’s what oilfield holidays are about. Family. Togetherness. Love. We celebrate when we are together as a family, whether it happens to be on December 25th or not.
Our schedule is two weeks on and two weeks off. That means the years that my HOM is gone for Thanksgiving, he is also gone for Christmas. We try our best to have as much fun as possible when we are all home together and that makes up for the time he’s away, even when he’s away on holidays.
We have certain traditions that make it feel like Christmas to us, in spite of what other things might be going on in our lives or what the date is. When we stick to our yearly traditions, it makes the holiday season “normal” even if our schedule is anything but. To us, the holidays are happy when we set up the tree together, open early presents, and vote on what goodies to make. That’s what Christmas is like at our house. I love to play family games at the kitchen table with the tree lights on in the living room while we all drink hot chocolate. When we do that it feels Christmas-y whether it’s November, December, or January. The holidays are what you make of them.
Oilfield families do holidays differently. Whether it’s celebrating with Dad far away, or celebrating on a different day – you have to make do. Making things special under less than ideal circumstances is important, that’s what oilfield holidays are.
Is anyone else celebrating without Dad this year? Or celebrating on a substitute day? Let’s hear about how other people are doing their oilfield holidays!