I was Air Force in the 1970s and the chow halls always put forth fabulous spreads for Thanksgiving and Christmas (may Easter as well).
My father was in the Navy during WWII and it used to tick him off in the sense that the holiday meals were so great, but why were the normal chow meals so crappy the rest of the time?
Generally, I thought the Air Force chow halls made pretty good meals, about the equivalent of today’s Golden Corral.
My “Christmas Meal” (Thanksgiving’s too) memories were badly warped by being so long in new construction (shipyard duty in the nuke subs in Electric Boat and Newport News) because we have no mess deck built yet, no heat, no power, no floors, nothing but a coffee pot and a remote barge workshop.
It wasn’t only that the mess cooks had nothing to cook with, nothing to cook on, or no mess decks to serve on, but they were not even assigned yet for 3 of the 4 years!