It is about that time of year where the CFC campaign is starting up, we are bombarded with feel-good holiday movies, and are being preached to “give thanks” and be charitable for those that have less. A few years ago, I would donate here and there to some causes dear to my heart, but in the back of my mind I was always a little stingy and had the belief that it may be best to continue to accumulate wealth now, but give later when I can give more. This mentality was challenged and ultimately overturned during this season a few years ago.

Being Russian, my family never celebrated traditional thanksgiving while I was growing up. Being married to my wife now, who is largely traditional with the holidays and seeing how important it is in general for many Americans, I have largely changed my view on the holiday that was previously just known as “4-5 free days off!”. My first year at Aviano, I hosted thanksgiving for my shop that all of the junior enlisted showed up to. It was a headache – especially for my wife who did 75%+ of the cooking – to put together a meal for 10+ people, but it felt pretty great to make sure my folks did not feel forgotten or ignored. The next year I just recently came home from a deployment, moved shops where there were only NCOs, and my wife and I ultimately decided to take it easy with the cooking. After thanksgiving, we found out that two people living in the dorms on base committed suicide over the weekend due to being alone which, even though nobody was part of my squadron, hit us pretty hard and was the catalyst in making me take on a more charitable mindset both financially, and temporally.

Now, hopefully if you are reading this blog, you are in at least decent financial shape. We have all seen the countless ads/sound bites that most people live paycheck to paycheck and unfortunately that is the truth, especially with how COVID has decimated certain economies. I challenge you to take initiative and help without judgement to at least someone inside or near your circle if you do not give already. For example, a friend of my wife’s was getting short on funds as she works in a heavily impacted COVID industry and had a situation where she was unable to contact a family member due to the cost involved. My wife transferred her $200 with no obligation to pay us back and the kindness we were able to afford brought my wife’s friend to tears. We also ran across a dog in a nearby community that was involved in a hit and run and required surgery and antibiotics during the thanksgiving weekend. We gave 80 euros to support a go fund me the current caretaker posted and got a private response seconds later asking if the extra 0 was in error and if we were sure we wanted to donate that much. We were in shock… 80 euros is THAT much?

Overall, as we build OUR lives and save to maintain that QOL, try to acknowledge that the stability of the military and federal employment puts us in a much more fortunate position than others and consider putting some funds aside to help those that are less fortunate. While donating thousands or more later may seem more impactful than donating a couple hundred now, that couple hundred now does make an immediate and huge difference.