Christmas In The Military: What's It Like?

Food fights, Santa driving a tank and drinking Gunfire are just some of the highlights from spending Christmas in the military.

We asked the BFBS audience what a military Christmas means and this is what they said:

1. Drinking Gunfire, a combination of tea and rum, in the early morning.

2. Alarm clocks sounding a bit different as you wake-up to pipes and drums marching through the accommodation.

3. Being a “singly” and having Christmas dinner with one of the families on the base.

4. Singing Christmas carols in the station gym or outside.

5. It is not unusual to see Father Christmas driving a tank, arriving in a helicopter, or a car.

6. Christmas dinners that end up in food fights, namely throwing roast potatoes at senior officers.

7. Being away from home and loved ones. 

8. Multiple Christmas functions that took place throughout the whole of December.

9. Fixmas in the Falklands. The military celebrates 'Fixmas' on the closest weekend to June 25, the middle of the winter in the Southern Hemisphere and six months away from Christmas Day. For one night they wear Christmas jumpers, have a party and the decorations go up. 

10. And finally, someone said it was "the best and most memorable Christmas."