The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Families make best of holidays
Many are without deployed loves ones
The holiday season can provide families the chance to reconnect and share gifts, meals and thanks going into the new year.
However, deployed soldiers are not provided the chance to come home to take part in traditions and festivities.
One way some families maintain normalcy is to reach out and open their doors to their soldiers’ spouses to include them in holiday celebrations.
Tony and Hope Filiaggi of Elyria will have their son Tyler Filiaggi’s wife, Carrie, home for Christmas.
The Filiaggis have two sons serving in the armed forces, Michael, who will be deployed next month to the Philippines and Tyler who will return in January from a nine-month deployment to Iraq.
With Carrie Filiaggi also having recently served in Korea, the Filiaggis have experienced their fair share of deployments.
“This year is a little different,” said Tony Filiaggi, 50.
“We’re kinda getting a piece of (Tyler with Carrie). We’re keeping everything the same.”
Although Tyler Filiaggi’s stocking is still hung and his gifts are under the tree for when he comes home next month, Hope Filiaggi, 48, said she still feels like this Christmas season will feel odd without him.
“I have decorated more, almost overcompensating because it’s sad for me,” she said. “It’s the first Christmas in 24 years that I haven’t been with him. It’s different, it’s hard.”
The Filiaggis said they usually talk to their son once a month and hope to receive a call from him on Christmas.
“He said he’s gonna try,” Hope Filiaggi said. “Our family, we always carry our phones around, because you never know when you’ll get that call, and you certainly don’t want to miss it.”
Hope Filiaggi, who works for the Elyria Municipal Court, said her coworkers have shown solidarity with Tyler since he was deployed.
Every Friday, she wears red for “Remembering Everyone Deployed” and her coworkers wear red with her.
“That has really, really made it a lot better,” Hope Filiaggi said. “Knowing the support we have made it a lot better.”
When Tyler returns from deployment, the family said he will stay home for a while before another deployment.
They said the works their sons do work makes them
proud.
“(Tyler) likes what he’s doing,” Hope Filiaggi said. “We’re so proud of what he’s doing, so it makes it OK.”
“I get to say that two of the best people are protecting us, and that makes me proud,” Tony Filiaggi said. Safe place
For Linda Bristow, 67, of Elyria, she hopes her home can provide a safe and loving place for her granddaughter to spend the holidays while her husband is deployed.
Bristow said her granddaughter, Elyria native Elizabeth Sanchez, met her husband, Storm Sanchez, when they were just children, growing up in the same neighborhood.
“He grew up two houses down, that’s how they met,” Bristow said. “He would come to my granddaughter’s birthday parties.”
The couple got married this year and moved to the Fort Campbell Army Base in Kentucky before Storm Sanchez was deployed almost six months ago, she said.
Although he has been deployed several times in the past, this is the first time that deployment will impact the couple’s Christmas.
“I know she misses him, but at least there is communication,” Bristow said. “That’s why she came here for Christmas.”
Bristow said Christmas morning normally is spent with family for brunch and gift-opening at home.
She said she believes that “love and everybody just being together” will play a large part in easing Elizabeth Sanchez’s pain this holiday season.
The Filiaggis said they usually talk to their son once a month and hope to receive a call from him on Christmas.