Our 4th of July Celebrations

When I was a young lad, the summers always held a special time for me. Sure, I was out of school for roughly 3 months and free to play with my friends for hours on end every day but that was not the highlight of my summers. Instead, the highlight of each summer growing up was the 4th of July.

I was fortunate enough to have grandparents that had a simple lake house at a lake not too far from our home. As kids, my brother and I, along with some of our cousins, spent many days at what was our favorite place on Earth. Good family, good friends, and tons of fun. We loved to be at our grandparents' lake house. So many memories were made there from ATV wrecks to music filled nights with our grandparents' friends dancing on the saw dust covered floor under the awning outside of the house. But all of those memories pale in comparison to my favorite memories there, the 4th of July nights.

Now, we didn't spend every 4th at the lake but as we got older we did spend more of them there than not. Their lake house was settled at the end of a little cul-de-sac. The families around them had kids and grandkids that were around our same age. So when the 4th of July rolled around, we would all go out and buy fireworks independently and then congregate in the middle of the road to put on one big consolidated show. We would load up in my Paw Paw's pickup truck and ride, usually sitting in the bed, to the nearby fireworks stand. We would have our money in hand to buy as much as we could before heading back to the house to wait the magic hour.

It never failed, our friend Lance would always have the biggest fireworks there. He was an early adopter of the big cannonball fireworks among our group. For many of us, the price tag on that one was just too steep but Lance always found a way to bring the boom to the show.

We would sit outside, each taking turns lighting off the stuff we bought, and put on a show for the neighborhood. It wasn't anything spectacular or fancy. It was just a bunch of kids lighting off basic bottle rockets and small fireworks but to us it was the greatest night of the year, save for maybe Christmas.

As we grew up and started having families of our own, the practicality of continuing our adventures at the lake house waned. Our grandfather was diagnosed with cancer and couldn't keep up the property anymore. Just a mix of life led to the lake house sitting empty and eventually being sold, thus ending the possibilities of future 4th of July parties.

For a while, many of us would congregate at one of our cousins' house to celebrate. She and her husband kept the spirit of the lake house alive in their home. We would do fireworks, swim, cookout, and just have a grand time hanging out as a family like in the good ol' days.

That eventually too came to an end. Not because of anything negative but just because how life tends to distract and add distance. Jobs changed, families grew, and schedules were not always forgiving. We still love and talk to our cousins but everyone understands that our families have grown to the point that getting everyone together in one house is a much greater challenge than it once was.

Growing up, there was a total of 6 grandkids, although the oldest of the 6 was a few years older than the next and was often not as active in the summer activities as the 5 of us who were all within a few years of the same age. These days, those 6 grandkids are each married. Among those 6 couples there is a total of 15 great grandkids and among them there is a total of 5 great great grandkids. It just goes to show how fast a family can grow in the span of a few generations. We went from 6 kids playing at the lake to approximately 30 people, plus all of our parents, trying to find a way to fit into one house to celebrate one of our favorite holidays.

These days, my family does our 4th of July celebration while our cousin does theirs. We don't celebrate together because of any animosity or division among the family now that our grandparents have passed but because we can't simply get all of us in one location without great expense. Sure, we could rent a space that would hold us all but it would likely be in an area that doesn't permit fireworks, which is a huge part to all of us in this celebration and memories. If we could find a place that allowed for said explosives then it would likely be a remote place that fewer of us would want to make that long of a drive for on such a busy holiday that generally involves a significant amount of alcohol for some.

When we first started hosting our own 4th of July parties, it quickly became a similar family celebration. My wife and I live on and share the same property where 2 of our sons and their families live, my brother-in-law and his family, and my mother and father-in-law. In total there are 5 houses and roughly 15 people that live on our little "compound". As we are all proud Americans who celebrate our country's independence, the idea of a communal celebration was quickly brought up and eagerly accepted by all.

In the years before COVID, our celebration would last all day. We would fire up multiple grills for hot dogs and hamburgers. We would have boxes of potato chips with a variety of flavors. My in-laws have a large popcorn machine on wheels that we would roll out and make bag after bag of popcorn. Tables were spread across the yards for people to sit at while they ate, chatted, and watched the show once the sun dipped below the horizon. Some years we had things like bounce houses and games like slip-n-slide kickball for people to enjoy.

Each family would supply various resources, i.e. one to buy buns while another buys the hot dogs, etc.. Then, we would all pitch in to a pool of money to buy the fireworks rather than each house buy individually. More money = more purchasing power and less chance for redundancy or missed expectations. The party would start around mid-day and would conclude with the fireworks show shortly after sundown. The fireworks would last 15-30 minutes and then everyone who didn't live there would leave. We would have over 100 people on the property throughout the day and then the following morning those of us who lived there would wake up and go outside to clean up the previous day's mess before the heat climbed too high.

It was a lot of fun and every year people would ask as the summer approached what we were doing for that year's 4th of July. When was it? What games were we going to have that year? Could they bring their friends? It really become something of an event that people looked forward to, and frankly, something that gave me anxiety as the party grew and our guests' expectations seemed to grow with it.

And then came 2020...

The summer of 2020 was the summer of lock downs. By the time the 4th rolled around, most everyone had been sequestered to their homes for the last 3 months. It was discussed by us that we did not want to forego our annual celebration but recognized that our previous party format was no longer sustainable. People were understandably worried about COVID so the idea of buffet style eating was less hygienic.The idea of having 100-150 people within a confined space, albeit mostly an outdoor space, was beyond the acceptable thresholds of the time. Many people still were afraid to leave their homes so an accurate count would be difficult to get which would make buying food and supplies during a time of significant shortages at the grocery store a challenge.

There were just many challenges and obstacles, health safety being the big one, that demanded change if we were to continue with our annual event. After some discussion, we settled on skipping the all day affair with the food, games, and heavy social interaction. Instead, the plan was to simply put on a big fireworks show that evening. Each house could invite the people they wanted but each house would need to seat their guests by their house. Minimize the amount of mingling that took place while keeping the number of people to each gathering down to better adhere to recommended guidelines. It was the best, most suitable approach we could devise given the circumstances.

One good thing did come from this change though. Without the added expense of the food, drinks, games, rentals, and everything else, we could take those dollars that were previously spent on other things and now invest that into our nighttime show. We went from having maybe a total of $500 of fireworks to having an annual show budget of $1500 (or more). Our fireworks show went from last less than 30 minutes to lasting nearly an hour. It still wasn't the super coordinated and extravagant shows that cities often put on but it was certainly comparable in many ways while being less crowded with easier access and better views.

The summer of 2020 saw our show take place with fewer people but since then the word has spread that our show is still happening and bigger than ever. The crowds are returning to our compound more and more with each passing year. Despite the shift in our party's format I expect our crowds to only continue to grow until it exceeds what we once considered to be a massive gathering. Our circles of friends continue to grow. Our compound continues to grow. It is inevitable to our celebration should continue to grow too.

My Paw Paw passed as a result of his cancer many years ago and never got to experience our revitalization of a celebration he helped to start so many years ago that has reverberated throughout our family. I am happy that my grandmother did get to come watch the show with us some before her recent passing. I think they would be proud of our family. Even though our family has grown too large to support a single celebration, I think they would appreciate the level of togetherness our families show by having these celebrations that honor the memories from our youth at the lake house that inspired us as adults. We may not have the lake house for our kids to enjoy but we certainly do what we can to help them make the same types of memories that they will then hopefully carry forward even after we're gone.