What is your most memorable Christmas while deployed?

Dinner while doing guard duty on the USS Gaudal Canal Christmas 1990. The turkey had none and they had a rib roast. All you could eat.

Probably my most memorable was serving on an isolated duty station 500 miles north of the Arctic Circle. When I say isolated, I mean isolated. We rarely saw or talked to anyone outside of the 2o or so men on the crew. Entertainment was movies, cards, ping pong, B Ball in a "gym" where the roof was so low you had to shoot between the rafters, and assorted hobbies. (Wood shop, Darkroom, and ... umm never mind, that was about it.) OH and of course log flights on those occasions when the weather was good enough for them to land.

Anyway, we had the usual festivities, and a really good meal, Turkey with all the trimmings, along with a ration of "medicinal" brandy). What I remember though took place later that night on watch. We were a LORAN station, and also had a VOR, mostly we were there to provide a navigation fix for BUFFs flying alerts, but we also conducted basic weather observations and provided a check in site for commercial aircraft flying the Great Circle Route from Europe. So there I am, doing my hourly readings, and listening for our call signs on about 12 different frequencies we guarded from LF through UHF. An SAS flight called to check in, and the pilot said he had a special message for me. I was then treated to several stewardesses singing Jingle Bells and White Christmas with their wonderful Swedish accents. They then wished us a merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Truthfully they could have sung anything and it would have been wonderful just to hear a woman's voice, but to this day I can close my eyes and hear them, and a smile comes to my face.

In Naples the local people invited a bunch of us sailors to their homes for Christmas dinner.Great food,people,and fun.The Grandma would try to feed you until you burst.Then on New Years eve you would want to walk in the middle of the road because at midnight they would throw used furniture out the windows.

Probably 2007 or 2009 when I deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq for battlefield circulation with the 82nd Airborne Division's All-American Chorus. Both times, we were either, rocketed, mortared, shot at with pistols & AKs, IED'd, VBIED'd, and/or RPG'd at in a UH-60. We survived and we put smiles on faces downrange while also returning fire to dumbasses trying to take us out. I even got to call in a successful fire mission. It made us late for one of our next missions, but the BN CDR, BN CSM, and senior understood. As much as our Division CG hated us, we all got commander's coins for our actions. What we did warranted CABs, but like I said...our CG hated us. I also got to meet more famous people, such as Gary Sinise & The Lt. Dan Band, John Topper from Blues Traveler, and a number of other celebrities both times. The extra money I received helped out when I got back, too.

Christmas we pulled into Gibraltar and Spent the day at a pub that the owner invited us to dinner.

my Mom sent me a box of homemade cookies. while I was in Germany

For my first duty station, I landed Camp Pelham, in South Korea near the end of 1994. Finally assigned to my unit, and totally unprepared for all my new found freedom as a soldier and as a young man. I was easily talked into heading off camp for a few drinks with a few seasoned soldiers: a couple E2 and a PFC. And Specialist Ammes.
What I expected to be a festive introduction was more like a poorly planned yet effective hazing. Bar to bar, drink after drink, and repeat. At 19 years old I slammed everything placed in front of me. Until I passed out. And that's how I stayed until the loudest explosion I had ever heard shocked me awake.
It was 0600 the following morning. Yep! Cannon blast, then reveille as the flag was raised. As it was Christmas Eve, the Sergeant Major was up and observing the detail. I hadn't been noticed until the blast jumped me because I was placed in a mock manger with a baby Jesus and crew. I stood there as this Sergeant Major locked on me. I didn't know him but I knew by his glare that I has hit! Suddenly, there was a tug on my arm and I was off runnings, with Spec. Ammes leading and maybe laughing? Ducking into a barracks door and up the stairs Ammes slid under his bed and pointed to the other for me. Wide eyed and gut sick petrified I lay there with only the worst possible endings unfold, and some ones smelly sneakers while Spec. Ammes slept. Soundly. Till 14:00. Ammes remained amused I over the situation while I had visions of a firing squad.
In front of the Sergeant Major we picked up two weeks before extra duty and loss of pass priv.
On Christmas day feeling like the biggest dirtbag, I headed to the mess hall expecting to be shamed by my fellow soldiers, only to find the opposite. Christmas day with my platoon laughing hysterically as we retold the tale over and over.
Thanks. TV

I was away from home every christmas (1963-67) but since then I have had great Christmases.

Bosnia

Mine was thanksgiving 63 or 64 we were aggressors for the 10th special forces and deployed in the Alps along the Austrian border. Someone decided we should have a real Thanksgiving dinner so they dropped in whole frozen turkeys and other raw and canned ingredients. Not the best but surely the most memorable. Just a reinforced rifle platoon wit nothing to prepare food.