As the semester ends, we travel home to our warm houses and TVs playing Christmas movies on repeat, and we brace ourselves for the ugly Christmas sweater parties and awkward family get-togethers. As exciting or as mundane as it may seem to you, some people are not as lucky this holiday season. 

Close to 200,000 men and women are serving our country overseas. This holiday season it is important to remember our soldiers. Remembering our troops is important, because then we remember to be grateful for them, but just being grateful isn’t enough. Putting a bumper sticker on your car saying you support the troops does nothing to support the troops. 

So I’m going to tell you about several different ways you can make an impact on the men and women serving our country overseas this holiday season. This hits home for me because my boyfriend has been stationed overseas for the past seven months and won’t be able to celebrate the holidays at home. 

One of my favorite ways that you can support our troops is by sending a care package. A care package can brighten someone’s day. There are several different ideas for care packages. For example, for Christmas you could send a box containing candy canes, hot chocolate mix, pine air freshener, stockings and any other holiday-related memories or thoughts.

It’s important for boxes to get sent out this week if you are planning on sending one, so that it will make it overseas by Christmas. You can also visit uso.org and purchase a pre-filled care package to send to a man or woman overseas. 

Other ideas for ways to encourage the troops are to write cards and letters. A card from back home, even if it’s from someone they don’t know, can bring encouragement and excitement to another day of work. If we all sat down and wrote a letter for someone serving in the military, we could make a huge impact on their daily lives. An easy way to send a letter is to visit soldiersangels.org and send a virtual Christmas card, where they print out your message and send it in a care package. 

Remembering troops that can’t be with their families this holiday season is very important and we need to do everything we can to actually support them. Sending care packages and letters as often as possible will bring encouragement to their day, and will hopefully bring a little holiday cheer to their deployment.