Military Family Creates Super Innovative Christmas Card Despite Father Being Deployed 4,000 Miles Away

Being 4,000 miles apart wasn’t going to stop one family from creating the perfect Christmas card.

Ashley Sistrunk is used to living apart from her husband, Brandon. Over the past 10 years, Sistrunk’s husband has been deployed four different times during the course of their marriage.

Because of his deployment, Brandon Sistrunk will miss celebrating Christmas this year with his wife and their four children. However, Ashley Sistrunk found a clever way of getting their family together for their holiday card with a little help from Photoshop and some inspiration from her friends.

“At first it made me sad and wish that my husband was here so that we could take family Christmas photos, but then I thought… he CAN be in our photos!” Sistrunk told Your Daily Dish via Facebook. “So I went to Pinterest and typed in ‘Christmas card ideas for military’ and saw a couple of different versions of Photoshopped photos of military members and their families and I wanted to put my own twist on it!”

Ashley Sistrunk and her four children posed in Colorado, while Brandon Sistrunk had his own photo shoot in Iraq.

“We did a ‘normal’ Christmas photo and then a more quirky version since we’re a pretty silly family,” Sistrunk said to Your Daily Dish.

With a little Photoshop magic, the family was able to create a super adorable holiday photo.

This one is more “us”. Merry Christmas, from our family to yours! #deployment #deploymentchristmas #christmas

A photo posted by Ashley Sistrunk (@ashley_sistrunk) on Dec 6, 2016 at 5:57am PST

Sistrunk hopes that the viral photo will help other military families who are in similar situations.

“I honestly cannot believe the impact that these little pictures have made! We have always wanted to be a voice for military families, especially for spouses of those deployed, and I feel like it’s finally happening!” Sistrunk told Your Daily Dish.

You know your husband loves you when he's willing to let someone take these kissing air pictures of him? He sent me about 15 different ones so at least ONE of them would work hahaha

A post shared by Ashley Sistrunk (@ashley_sistrunk) on Dec 6, 2016 at 2:59pm PST

Brandon Sistrunk is expected to return home sometime in January.

(H/T InspireMore)