if you have a family member or close friend in the military

what do you buy them for the holidays? my brother is in the marines and normally when hes home I will buy things that he's into but now he has such a short time at home I dont know what to get him? any ideas?

Re: if you have a family member or close friend in the military

My cousin is in the Army, hes in Germany though but we usually send him a GC.

Re: if you have a family member or close friend in the military

video games maybe?

Re: if you have a family member or close friend in the military

You can go many different routes. Military gear can be pricey and isn't always supplied for free. My husbands boots are expensive. You could give him portable DVD player for deployments. A lot of guys use those but not sure ... Because if they are in a tent it may be hard to get a power source. Calling cards, or maybe even a framed flag.

Re: if you have a family member or close friend in the military

Is he home for a short amount of time because he's coming home on R&R from deployment and heading right back out, or just taking some leave for the holidays & then going back to the barracks?

If he's mid-deployment, I'd get things that travel well - edible gifts, a small photo book, gift cards for things he can access there (itunes, phone cards), maybe something like an e-reader. But if he's just going back to the base when he leaves, I'd buy the same type of things I'd get when he was home, whatever he's into, just keeping in mind that he won't necessarily have room to keep very large things in the barracks.

Also, check out the Sgt. Grit store. It has lots of gift ideas for Marines!

Re: if you have a family member or close friend in the military

When my brother was deployed we gave him a digital picture frame and loaded the sd disk with pictures so he had a bunch of pics and we would just keep sending him new disks as we took more pictures.