Our 12th family move, this time from North Carolina to Europe, posed some logistical problems with the transferring of our holiday traditions. Lots of people love to say it's not about money, things, or decor - as long as everyone is together it's a grand old time. Bah humbug. The citizens of Who-ville wouldn't have been joyful and triumphant had they awoken without their things and suddenly living in a different country.

My Marine husband left for Iraq in January and came home in June. We had a four-day weekend together as a family before he had to be back at work. Less than ninety days later we were en route to Marine Forces Europe in Stuttgart, Germany. That may not seem like much time to pull off an overseas move, but time is long or short relative to what you're doing. We lived for the next 90 days on the fourth floor of a hotel with no elevator. By "we" I mean my husband, myself, and our three children.

The older two were not happy about having left in the middle of their senior year in high school. Our youngest was still too young to realize the gravity of this move. In her mind, going from country to country was the same as going from one house to another in the same town. It was a luxury of ignorant bliss our two older children no longer enjoyed. We celebrated Thanksgiving with five microwavable turkey dinners and a walk around our new community. Without even a few of our traditional trimmings, the older two felt very far from home for the first time.

We'd checked in with the housing office, put ourselves on the waiting list, and spent a lot of time looking for off-base housing to no avail. What didn't cost too much was too small and what wasn't too small was too far away. The homes we were willing to take were taken off the market at the last minute for various reasons. Christmas loomed ever nearer. My husband had to check in to his new command so the children and I were on our own, save for a few days he was able to get out of work.

Our household goods (to include several hundred dollars worth of gifts bought while my husband was deployed) had arrived, but could not be transferred over to us until we had "secured a residence." No, a hotel room full of middle-age anxiety and teenage angst is not considered "a residence" according to the military's Traffic Management Office.