My Marine Brother Was About To Miss Every Holiday. Our Family Had Other Plans.

A 6’5” Marine with about the same dimensions as Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, one of my little brothers is about to go on his first deployment. He spent over a year at Quantico, about 45 minutes south of my house, spending weekends with my husband, my older son, and my baby, his godson. During that time, Andrew got lots of free haircuts and home-cooked meals. He also got hand, foot, and mouth disease from the kids, which I’d say evens things out. 

It was hard seeing him off to his new base across the country, and it will be even harder not seeing him for however long deployment lasts. We’re expecting 13 months.  We’re big on holidays in our family, and I worried about him missing out. One night, my husband said something about how fun it would be if we could celebrate all the holidays at once. So I cooked up a plan. 

Together with my parents, I planned Holiday Day, one glorious Saturday during my brother’s predeployment leave in which we would celebrate all the major holidays of the year. That’s how we ended up celebrating New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Independence Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas all at once. It was more wonderful — and more dangerous — than I could have imagined. 

It started as a surprise around 9 a.m. at my parents’ house. A handful of us awkwardly followed Andrew to the bathroom after he woke up in the morning and waited for him to open the door, immediately assaulting him with noise makers. “Happy New Year!” we yelled. He broke into an embarrassed, lopsided smile. “We’re doing all the holidays?” He was onto us. But yes, yes we were. 

We moved downstairs to drink mimosas (orange juice optional), don 2027 glasses, and sound the noise makers until I had to confiscate them from my four-year-old. Time moves fast on Holiday Day, and we quickly shifted to a Valentine’s celebration with a breakfast cake bedazzled by Trader Joe’s candy hearts. One thing I hadn’t considered was the playlist. I put on “Auld Lang Syne” before searching “Valentine’s playlist” on Spotify. Finding a crowd pleaser in mixed company wasn’t easy. 

Madeline Fry Schultz

Next up was Easter. While the other guys distracted Andrew, my mother, sister-in-law, and I scattered Easter eggs by the neighborhood pool. (If you’re wondering how we snagged off-season loot, we got the plastic eggs and candy — malted milk robin eggs, of course — off Amazon.) There were unfortunately not enough nooks to raise the difficulty level above about 5th grade prowess, but we ladies did bring a step stool to reach some higher spots. While we scattered the eggs, we saw some deer, which I took to be a good omen. The hunt itself mainly consisted of my four-year-old grabbing and accidentally dropping the cheap plastic eggs, but I’d say all in all it was a success. 

Madeline Fry Schultz

One of my favorite moments was our St. Patrick’s Day lunch at a local Irish restaurant. All 11 of us crowded around a massive table, sharing Scotch eggs and corned beef. We of course had to order Guinness and split the G (drink until you hit the middle of the “G” on the Guinness glass), and I believe I came the closest, though my glass and a couple others had almost no lettering left after countless washes. At least we knew they were clean. We all wore the greenest clothes we could find, and I brought green Mardi Gras beads and green translucent shamrock glasses for anyone who needed a little extra spirit. A sign on the wall read, “Countdown to St. Paddy’s Day: 187 days!” For us, it was 0. 

Madeline Fry Schultz

Next up was Halloween. That’s when it started to be a bit of a tearjerker, and not just because of the Guinness at lunch. My mom had sent an email to the neighborhood to ask if anyone wanted to participate in trick-or-treating. We’ll provide the candy beforehand, she said. All you need to do is be at your house around 4 p.m. to hand it out. This activity, like others during the day, proved to be most exciting for my four-year-old. (The two baby cousins looked adorable in their pumpkin and lobster costumes, but they weren’t quite sure why they were sweating in polyester in the Southern heat.) But, even though he felt awkward about trick-or-treating himself, it was most meaningful for Andrew.

Thirteen households in the neighborhood we grew up in offered to give out candy, with some offering to provide it themselves. I can’t say for sure who was decorating for Halloween early or who had forgotten to take down their Fourth of July decor, but many of the houses were festooned with pumpkins or American flags. One family put out their blow-up dragon. Another gave out crayons. One father didn’t give candy but came running out of his house to intercept Andrew and hand him a card. Another parent invited us all, sweating in our various costumes, to raid her garage fridge for drinks. (And if you’re wondering: Andrew was a reindeer.)

Madeline Fry Schultz

The trappings of most of these holidays were fairly easy to approximate with last-minute purchases from Amazon. But Thanksgiving was a different story. In case you’ve never tried it, it’s not easy to find a whole turkey at the average grocery store when it’s not pilgrim and pumpkin season. My parents had looked all over. One day, when their friends were showing off their ice chest stocked by a local farm’s animals, including two turkeys, my mom jumped at the opportunity. After she told them what it was for, they offered to smoke a turkey themselves and drop it off on Saturday evening. It was one of the best birds I’ve ever had, and it paired perfectly with early season Costco pumpkin pie. 

Madeline Fry Schultz

You may have noticed that we skipped Independence Day, and we’re getting to that. But first, it was Christmas, and what better way to mark the season than by chopping down a tree? My parents had a mid-sized evergreen that was growing too close to their fence. After dinner, my father handed Andrew an axe, and, barefoot and shirtless, he started hacking away. The thing fell with a gentle whoosh and was soon raised on a borrowed Christmas tree stand with a mismatched set of lights. We watched “It’s A Wonderful Life” on the porch until 9 p.m., the set time for the arrival of our master of ceremonies for the final event of the day. 

Madeline Fry Schultz

Thank God for the South, where it’s not difficult to purchase hundreds of dollars of fireworks when the leaves are already starting to turn. And thank God for our family friend who offered to shoot them off for us with his homemade mortar rack. In the street in front of the house, the fireworks were big and loud and bright — and careening dangerously close to the pine trees towering over our heads. That, it turns out, was not the problem. Everything was fine until a box firework in the middle of the street fell on its side. Suddenly, bursts of light were shooting down the road, through the gap between the neighbors’ houses, and directly at my other younger brother, who was filming it all. My sister-and-law and I sat next to each other, staring in disbelief until she gathered her wits and started running back toward the house. Prompted by my husband, I followed close on her heels. Andrew, of course, casually sauntered toward the box, which finally righted itself and closed out a riveting show. 

Some of us went to bed, but a few stayed up to finish the Christmas movie. My vote for the film had been “Christmas with the Kranks,” but that was vetoed in favor of something with a little more gravitas. And “It’s A Wonderful Life” was more fitting, anyway. There was something Capra-esque about the way the community came together so enthusiastically to celebrate Andrew. Some people had known him since he was in Little League; others maybe just wanted to do something fun to support the troops.

We pulled off one of the best days ever thanks to dozens of generous people, many of whom will also be praying for him when he deploys.

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