So alone in a foreign country for Christmas...not unusual for the Military. I was stationed in Germany. We had some married guys in our Platoon, so we took their Duty over the long Christmas break (I think it was four days, might have been five).
Everyone else either went home for Leave, lived off Post, or went to friend's homes. And well, this is what happens when you leave a bunch of 18,19, and 20 year olds to their own devices.

"Bah, Humbug.” A Soldier's Christmas.
There were eight of us. Five of us were missing our girlfriends something fierce. The other three were single, but missing family and friends. There were just four days until Christmas- and everyone who could afford to, had gone home for the week of Christmas. None of us could afford to. Eight lonely guys in a Barracks that usually held fifty people. Light Duty. No where to go.
"Bah, Humbug."
Then a guy brought one of those tacky ceramic trees with the lightbulbs already in it. It was two feet tall, ugly as all heck, and gave "tacky" a bad name. We loved it. We spent two days building what amounted to a Christmas Scene around it.

One guy found a tiny manger and a teeny tiny infant Jesus. We used real straw to stuff the rickety shelter - more of a lean to than a barn really, and made out of popsicle sticks. We put that to one side of the table where we pulled the stuffing out of first aid bandages to make 'snow'. We had a mismatched Mary and Joseph. Mary was as big as a small doll, Joseph was in proportion to the baby Jesus. We didn't care. It worked for us. We got a bag of small farm animals from the PX- and surrounded the scene with those. For the three "Wise Men" We used the Kings and Queens from two Chess sets. We put little colored pieces of cloth over the Chess pieces to look like robes. We thought it was starting to shape up. The Senior Sergeant watching over all us lonely desperate soldiers thought it was ugly.
Bah, Humbug.

We got some tinsel and some more lights. A guy from the town nearby gave us some pine needles and let us cart off a handful of Christmas Tree branches that fell off onto the snow. We made a berm of those pine branches around the table top with the Nativity set and Christmas tree. We sprinkled the pine needles all around the stable that held the Manger. It was looking good.
Bah, humbug.

All of us had one present from home- some a couple more. Those went on the table top too. Then one of the guys had an idea. Lets buy toys for each other.

"Toys?"

"Yeah, toys. You know, Army men, Hotwheels. Model planes. Stuff like that."

Eight young men suddenly turned into kids.

Bah, humbug.

We go wild. Everything in the PX was marked down (and unlike nowadays, there weren't a ton of Children's toys in an Army Store). Toys were marked way way down. The PX closed at 6 PM on the 23d of December and wouldn't open again until January 2nd.

I was there at Noon. That was my assigned hour. We had drawn straws to see who went at what time. We agreed that each of us had an hour. We had to go by ourselves so nobody could see what the other soldiers were buying.

And we bought, and bought, and bought.

Bah, Humbug.

Wrapping paper was everywhere. We had plenty. So we used the rest for wallpaper. Yep. The whole corner of that Day Room looked like you were standing inside a Christmas Gift, looking out. None of it matched. We thought it was beautiful, so we strung lights across it with bows as anchors.

Bah, Humbug.

Christmas Morning comes...and we tore into those gifts like five and six year old kids from the Movie "A Christmas Story." And yes, we got socks. LOL
We also got so many Army men, we formed Battalions out of them, and re-enacted the Battle of the Bulge- with tanks and cannon too.
Hot wheels. They had only been out for a year or two, but they were truly Hot Items. We raced them on the plastic tracks we got as a gift. Then we formed loop de loops with the extra track. We flung those cars around to see who could beat who. Many a car flew off the track with a soldier scrambling after it.

A train set. What the heck. Turns out one of the gifts from home was an H&O scale model train with only an oval track. It had a missile car with a little rocket that fired with a little clip on it. Oh, yeah.

We each had several model planes, boats, and cars. I got three of the best: I got a scale model of the Battleship Bismarck, a P-51 Fighter, and a 57 Chevy Bell Air (Convertible) - with glue, paints, and decals, some of the guys made their models look like the cover of the box. I don't have fine motor skills, so most of the tiny "Ack Ack" guns on the Bismarck were securely glued to my fingers. I did get most of the decals in the right places on the P-51 though. Everyone's cars, planes, and ships, looked much better than mine, but nobody beat anyone else out for pure fun.
One guy got a Fruit Cake from home. We stared at it. It was heavy.
After a few moments discussion a consensus was reached:
"Send it back to your Aunt next Christmas."
Bah, Humbug.

Oh, but wait, one girl knew her man well. He opened one of the gifts she sent him. Hello, what's this? Oreos. Two boxes of Clark Bars. Four! (Count 'em, four!) Cans of Pringles. Something new to a lot of us. Oh...oh yeah. Candy Canes. Ribbons and ribbons of them. Bless you dear girl, bless you.
And so it went.
Eight full grown men reverting to eight year olds in less than an hour. We played and played with those toys. Some of the toys did not survive the afternoon, after all, war is hell. My P-51 was sacrificed with some cotton balls and lighter fluid. One of the other guys tanks was taken out by cannon fire (and an M 80 takes a model tank out of action).

By the way, if you do ever play with lighter fluid and cotton balls to make the battlefield more authentic, make sure you aren't near a wall covered with wrapping paper. Luckily, the fire extinguisher was nearby.

We traded Hot Wheels with each other- and I paid a box of Clark Bars for a sweater I thought was cool, but one of the other soldiers thought was horrendous. And so it went until we went to the only Mess Hall Open for Christmas Dinner. Then we went back to the barracks and played with our toys as we listened to the Bob Hope Christmas Special on TV.
As Tiny Tim said:

"And God Bless us Everyone."

Merry Christmas Brothers and Sisters.