Stars and Stripes can festoon anything
Fourth of July celebrations of yore
This week was the 4th of July holiday in the US. Living in the UK now, I only occasionally make it back to my home state for Independence Day. Since some of you are less familiar with the 4th of July, to celebrate this year, I’ll share some tales and photos of past celebrations! 🇺🇸 🎉 🎇
Like Thanksgiving, the 4th of July is a holiday that is typically celebrated in a homespun way: family oriented, with local community activities added in. Sometimes the 4th is at the beginning or end of a very long 3- or 4-day weekend of many celebrations; less ideal, it’s marooned in the middle of the week and you feel lucky to get time for a waving sparkler.
Barbecues and picnics with family and friends form the basic celebratory activities. So, yes: also like Thanksgiving, the focus is on food! Red, white and blue themed food is not optional. At the more restrained end, think blueberries and strawberries tossed with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. More typically, cooks go wild, and create amazingly decorated food.
Sometimes there is a brief thought given to the reason we celebrate the day, but mostly it is a celebration of the places we live and the freedom to eat we (well, many of us) enjoy. Fundamentally, really, it’s a bonus day off in summer. My memorable 4th of July celebrations have been in smaller villages and towns. The day typically begins with an early morning ‘fun run’, followed by a pancake breakfast sponsored by a local civic organisation. I mentioned a focus on food, right? But the real highlight of the day is the town parade.
Town parades are fabulous: they are a perfect manifestation of the communities they serve, featuring many local organisations and clubs. Some of these groups work for weeks to create floats in the backs of pickup trucks, or constructed on a flatbed truck. The mayor, the vice mayor and other local dignitaries start off the parade in open-top cars, waving from the back seats. Classic cars, community bands of all levels, local orchestras, school sports teams, costumed dogs, and more, march or roll through the main street, with the police and fire department vehicles bringing up the end, sirens blaring now and again.
Local dance groups perform routines along the route, and throw candy to the kids watching. The scouts parade in formation, showing off skills that have earned them badges. Community theatre groups love the chance to sing and perform dance routines, advertising their summer shows. A gym will show off some muscled men and women posing in their lycra suits so you believe that you TOO can look like that (‘grab a coupon for a free trial if you join NOW’)! We love to see our friends and neighbours in the parade, and maybe learn about a new organisation we hadn’t heard about before.
But what we really love is seeing the ad hoc groups that decide to show off something unexpected.
One year, a group of men showcased their previously unknown superpower: lawn-chair folding acrobatics, in formation. They had a proper marching drill with whistles and commands and a brilliant routine. See a similar group here:
One year I was part of a group that spoofed the recent arrest of Martha Stewart1. All the moms got Martha Stewart blond wigs and dressed up in our best pearls, and all the dads got dressed in suits as her lawyers and investment advisors, and we paraded together. I can’t remember if we had a routine. We had signs. Retelling it now, it seems incredibly silly, but at the time we had a blast working on it all together over many evenings of craft making and drinks. Too bad for you I have NO photos 👩🦳
The other big part of 4th of July celebrations are the evening fireworks displays. Since I grew up in California, we had to go to certain places to see fireworks that were restricted to avoid risks of wildfire. Living in a place with summer fog, we also had the uncertainty of whether the cool moist fog would come in and obliterate the fireworks. Many years we just saw some blurry coloured lights winking in the foggy sky overhead.
For about 5 years before I left the US, I had a 4th of July party at my house. I lived next to a Golf Course and for this one night of the year, the private club looked the other way when hundreds of people would stream onto the grassy course to watch the fireworks that our local fire department shot up into the sky.
As it was California summer, most of the surrounding hills were dry grass-covered, so shooting off private fireworks was strictly prohibited. Only under certain circumstances—like when the fireworks department was specially funded, and we had a safe place—could we have events like this.
So really, I had an obligation to invite as many people over as I could to share in the awesome access to close-up fireworks.
Everyone arrived in the late afternoon as temperatures began to cool, bringing drinks or food to share. I had a small place but a big enough patio where the adults would gather. The growing up kids would go roaming around the neighbourhood or the school grounds next door in search of other friends or ball fields to play on, or stay inside to play video games if it was too hot.
After a few hours of drinking, eating barbecue, and before we wandered over to the Golf Course, we would all—kids and parents—gather to play a quiz game modelled after Jeopardy2. The questions in our game were based on events and knowledge around American History and Independence Day. Organised into categories like Presidents, Flag lore, The Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights, each team took turns picking the category and then the MC would read out the question in that category. My teen-aged daughter researched the questions and answers each year and acted as MC for the quiz. She was VERY thorough.
In their third year, the high school kids took US History; those who had just finished felt a lot of pressure to remember the answers. However, we also had several grown up history buffs and a lawyer in our group, so the arguing and discussions were lively. It usually started out as a team game and ended up as more of a free-for-all…
As dusk approached, we gathered up woolly blankets, jackets, hats and even gloves, as the evening air in the Bay Area inevitably cooled down. We aimed for a special rounded hill on the golf course, where we could perch up above a small pond, and spread out our blankets to keep the damp grass away from our bottoms. When the fireworks went off, the reflection in the water added an extra sparkly dimension.
This was my favourite part of the day: the daytime activities were done, the time to relax had come. My longtime friends and our little and bigger kids snuggled up together to enjoy the views, and ohhh and ahhh at the colourful lights exploding overhead. I could feel the loud booming of the explosions in my belly. We pulled the blankets close, nudged each other with smiles, relishing our people close around us and good fortune to be together for one more day. A gift to embrace the simple pleasure of fireworks exploding in the sky without fear. It was a wonderful way to finish the 4th of July one more year.
Those are a few of my memories; I’d love to hear from y’all about yours!
If you are American, what are your 4th of July traditions?
If you are not American, did you have ideas about 4th of July celebrations from movies or TV? Did anything here surprise you?
What other holidays do you enjoy and why?
As ever, I am so grateful for you reading this! Hope to see you here next week!
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Stewart
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeopardy!
I'm chagrined to admit that on July 4 I totally forgot it was the 4th of July. I was even with my siblings here in Madrid and none of us mentioned it despite the glorious July 4ths we had spent together at Clear Lake as children and teenagers.
Your wonderful post brought back so many memories of that wonderful holiday. We went to Clear Lake every 4th to our friends' home on the lake. Each year, the same families celebrated together following the same annual traditions. Red, white, and blue outfits; a parade across the expansive lawn to the flagpole from youngest to oldest member of the group; Uncle Jack dressed in a red and white striped blazer reading the Declaration of Independence; dinner with a red, white, and blue cake for dessert; and fireworks. Before the parade, the children had to put on for the adults while they gathered around in lawn chairs with their martinis a play related to Independence Day: Paul Revere's ride in which we hauled the donkey out of the pasture to act in the play (Paul never would have made it); the Boston Tea Party in which we jumped off the motor boat with Lipton tea bags; and Betsy Ross removing needles from a plastic sewing kit to sew the flag. Finally, when we were teenagers, we organized a mutiny and refused to do the play. Instead, my mother wrote it. She had us nearly wetting our pants with laughter it was so funny and clever.
I forgive myself for forgetting it was the 4th of July because if we aren't at Clear Lake, there is no 4th.
Absolutely fascinating post, Sabrina - it's so lovely to get an insight into the 4th of July. 🇺🇸
And those lawnchair Dads - what an epic performance!