Every December, Andy and Nancy Gibson and their three children trudge through rows of evergreens at a farm in Newburgh, endlessly bickering about the perfect Christmas tree.

Nancy is the practical one, usually arguing that the family’s selection is going to be too big to fit into their home in nearby Pittsfield.

But this year, daughter Kelly, 14, says the slender balsam fir that bends under the weight of the family ornaments is too “wimpy,” and she sneaks only a few embarrassed glances toward the family’s “Charlie Brown” tree.

The Gibsons didn’t make the tree-hunting expedition this year. And for the first time in their married lives, Nancy, 42, will not spend Christmas with Andy, 45, her husband of nearly 23 years.

Nor will she wake up Christmas morning and watch her son Craig, 19, open his presents.

Lt. Col. Andy Gibson, a support chaplain for the Maine Army National Guard, is in Afghanistan, serving with the 240th Engineer Group.

Spc. Craig Gibson is in Iraq with the Brewer-based B Company, 3rd Battalion of the 172nd Mountain Infantry.

“It just wasn’t the same,” Nancy Gibson said. “We would never do it without them.”

From the outside, the Gibsons’ cozy white Victorian home looks the same as it did last Christmas, complete with its multicolored holiday lights and bows, but there’s one difference – two cloth banners hang from the porch windows on either side of the front door.

A single blue star is embroidered in the middle of each of the two banners, symbolizing the two family members who are serving far away in two alien cultures that have preoccupied Americans for the past five years.

The year 2006 has brought a host of changes and adventures to the Gibson home, particularly for Nancy, an emergency room nurse.

In January, her husband was commuting to a National Guard job in Augusta. Her son Craig had joined the Army after high school graduation in 2005, and by January he was being deployed to Iraq.

When eldest son Daniel, 22, realized his father and brother would be deployed in January, he rearranged his wedding plans so they could attend and married his wife, Lauren, on Jan. 7, rather than in June. The couple now lives in Maryland.

By February, Nancy Gibson found herself living alone with her teenage daughter.

Propped in a plush chair in her living room earlier this month, Nancy Gibson smiled as she recalled the mechanical miscues that have occurred while her Mr. Fix-It knight in shining armor has been overseas. Her car broke down in Skowhegan on the way home from daughter Kelly’s dance recital practice, then both her clothes washer and dryer died, and then there are all those little tasks such as raking leaves and mowing the lawn that have been a challenge.

“I have wonderful friends,” she said, stressing how willing they all have been to help.

She also has another family member at home.

In November, Andy’s sister from North Carolina died. Before her death, she asked Andy and Nancy to raise her youngest daughter, Emma.

“She is a great kid, sweet girl and good student,” Nancy said.

During an interview, Nancy Gibson made a quick trip upstairs, then back down to the kitchen to begin fixing some chicken noodle soup, toast and a glass of ginger ale – a mother’s recipe for an upset stomach.

Upstairs, Emma was sleeping off the flu. The shy 9-year-old had surfaced from her warm blankets just long enough to curb her hunger.

It’s usually Andy who is the family chef supreme.

Nancy’s willingness to assume so many responsibilities in Andy’s absence does not surprise her husband, but does prompt him to consider the circumstances if the roles were reversed.

“She has raised our daughter, gone to work as a nurse (in three different locations), taken in my niece, and managed to remodel our house and deal with contractors, etc.,” Andy Gibson said in an e-mail from Afghanistan. “She is amazing. I don’t know, if our roles were reversed, if I could even come close to managing as well as she. My only concern is what I will owe her when I get back!”

Although Nancy would love to have Andy’s gourmet culinary skills back in the kitchen, and Kelly cannot wait to have her big brother’s guidance back home, both said they simply want the two home safe.

Once Emma finished her soup, Nancy began fixing dinner for Kelly, but slowed the scrambling of eggs to recall a story of two people who met as teenagers and finished their courtship by eloping to a Connecticut town hall.

Dressed in a snow-white turtleneck sweater and white pearls, Nancy laughed and her face reddened as she shared her love story, while Kelly, listening to her mom, said she was appalled to hear that her parents did not have a lavish wedding.

The 14-year-old, who aspires to become a professional dancer in New York City, sat at the kitchen table in her fashionable V-neck shirt, pencil-cut jeans, black plastic “pearls” and black-and-white checkerboard earrings, and assured her mother that she would have a “big wedding.”

“It’s OK,” Nancy said. “You can have one and I’ll live through you,” she said with a wink, which was met by an “are you serious?” look from Kelly.

Although “the guys'” deployment has taken an emotional toll on the family, Nancy said, in a way it has been a blessing. It has given Nancy an opportunity to focus on her daughter and better understand her fashion and musical preferences and friends.

“She had a certain style and music that I never got,” Nancy said. “And now I get it!”

Such an understanding, however, came with time and patience.

The two have enjoyed everything from trips to the Bangor Mall together as well as to some alternative rock concerts, so when faced with the task of buying Christmas presents for their soldiers, they felt up to the challenge.

Since the men are due back in the States in a few months, they did not request much for Christmas, but Craig received an ample supply of Easy Mac, and Andy welcomed his hand and foot warmers, which will help combat the cold Afghan winter.

The holidays, of course, remain special for all soldiers, deployed or not, but both Gibsons said they must focus on their jobs and cannot dwell on the void.

“We all miss our loved ones; we cope by laughing too hard at bad jokes, teasing each other mercilessly, finding someone to cry with (or whine to), and focusing on our job at hand,” Andy wrote.

As for the soldiers’ gifts for the women back home, Craig said in an e-mail that his Christmas shopping has never been easier.

“I never did online shopping before, but I was kind of forced into it this year,” Craig wrote from Iraq. “I didn’t just want to buy the best things that our only means of shopping had to offer. … So I did a lot of online shopping. Which couldn’t have been easier. My family will be very pleased!”

Brother Daniel and his new wife will join Nancy and Kelly in Pittsfield for Christmas, then the family will visit Andy’s parents in Machias. But, once again, a family holiday tradition will be broken this year, because the entire family will not be able to gather around a television and watch for the umpteenth time “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

To keep the tradition alive as best he could, Andy watched the movie last week in Afghanistan, but by the end of the movie he was overwhelmed with emotion.

“I just watched it with some other soldiers on our movie night last Friday,” Andy wrote. “I realized that that would be the first time in 23 years that I would not be watching it with my wife by my side. I also realized that it’s hard to cry for over two hours without anyone noticing.”