The holiday season can be rough for military families who desperately miss their relatives serving overseas.

While most are content in the fact that a loved one is serving a noble cause, many yearn for a reunion to brighten their holiday spirit.

Tina Knight, of Hamilton, is both excited and relieved to celebrate Christmas with her son, 23-year-old Travis Young.

Young, who enlisted in the Marines in 2008 straight out of Hamilton High Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps, did not walk with his graduating class. During his four-year enlistment, he served two 7-month tours of duty in Afghanistan, following in the footsteps of many relatives who served in the military.

Having her son home will mean Christmas celebrations will continue, as planned, Knight said.

“It’s going to be great,” she said. “The Christmas we had without him, we really didn’t celebrate until he came home” in January. “During that tour there was a boy in his platoon who was killed right before Christmas and we all decided we would just wait. We didn’t want to do it without him.”

A welcome home party this weekend was expected to include all family members. Young will have one Christmas dinner with his mother, stepfather, four brothers and two sisters and another with his father (Donnie Young), grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt and cousin.

Young, who is not re-enlisting, plans to attend Miami University to study criminal law with all the advantages the military provides for him to continue his education.

“I’m perfectly happy with that,” Knight said. “His plan worked out for him. We always knew he was going to go to school, we just didn’t know when.”

Knight said the biggest struggle will come with coming to grips with his experiences overseas.

“He’s seen so much more than most 23-year-olds,” she said. “He’s had his best friends die next to him.”

Some families with relatives still in a tour of duty won’t get to share much more than a phone call, email or Facebook message during the holiday.

For Chrisy Myers of Middletown, this Christmas was set to be different than last year, when her son wasn’t able to be home.

Middletown High School graduate Chris Myers, 25, graduated from Miami University in 2010 and was commissioned as a Navy officer upon graduation. His four years of military service took him to the Mediterranean Sea and more than a handful of countries during a deployment that started in May 2011 and ended in January 2012.

Now a lieutenant junior grade, he was scheduled to return from Norfolk Naval Base this past weekend.

“I’d ordered him a Merry Christmas-Welcome Home sign that we were going to put up this week and had all kinds of family plans we were going to do,” she said.

That all changed Dec. 17 when Chrisy Myers learned her son’s ship didn’t pass its inspection

“Instead of coming home (the weekend before the holiday), he’s not going to come home at all for Christmas,” she said.

Myers said she’ll spend the holiday with her parents and daughter Ashley, 26, but will hold a second Christmas celebration when her son returns next month.

“We’re just going to leave the tree up and we’ll just have Christmas in January,” she said.

Despite her deep disappointment, Myers said she still is able to keep things in perspective.

“I’m very thankful that he’s safe,” she said. “He’s not deployed like he was last Christmas, where I have to worry more, and he’s alive.

“The thing about the (Connecticut school) shooting, people have lost their children and I can still talk to mine, so I’m very thankful for that but he will be missed,” she said.