Today is March Fourth. The only day of the year that is a command…to March Forth.

For many people this is just another day…but not for the McNally clan. This is a holiday to be celebrated with exuberance!

Years and years ago, this family celebration holiday was created by my mother-in-law (though we say mother-in-love) Kathy. When she was in her early twenties, she received her acceptance letter from nursing school. The letter was dated March 4. Kathy took this as a literal word to move ahead in this direction of her life.

Years passed and when Kathy and Jim’s grandclan had grown to more than a gaggle, it was time to create a celebration for the holiday. At the time, the whole family lived within a few miles of each other.

We started having an annual family dinner with menus that included items such as foot long hot dogs, shoestring potatoes, toe-mato and let-us March forth salad. Dessert was cookies cut into the shape of little foot prints.

The family would gather and marching band music was playing through the house. Kathy would lead the grandkids through the house marching for the entirety of the tune.

We would then move onto the next phase of the celebration…presenting the highly coveted golden boot award. Kathy had taken a combat boot and spray painted it gold. Twenty crisp one dollar bills were stuffed inside. She would pull out notes from the previous year. These notes each contained a personal goal that each of us had written one year ago. Depending everyone’s age our goals list included things like; starting a new business, learning a foreign language, potty training, learning to read, keeping a bedroom clean, etc… kind of like a new year’s resolution, but one that you will have to be held accountable for.

After the list of past goals was read aloud, we would each cast a vote for who we though should win the golden boot award based on their performance of attaining their goal. This was always the pomp and circumstance ceremony of the last winner passing on the boot to the new recipient. There were a couple of rules that conveyed with the golden boot, you had to display it prominently in your home for the whole year, and tell the story of celebrating March Forth to any one who asked. Many years this boot sat proudly on our fireplace mantle.

We would then state our new goal for the year as it was recorded in Grammy’s notebook to hold us accountable to it.

After dinner, Kathy would have each of the grandkids stand on the table and she would trace their feet in pencil. Later, she would embroider the outline of their foot into the table cloth. Showing the kids growth from year to year.

One year. Our family’s celebration appeared in the Disney publication, Family Fun magazine.

Here’s a fun little story to add… About ten years ago, I was traveling  through the Denver airport on business, when I came across a whole crew of gypsy-like characters….obviously a band of some sort. One was wearing a t-shirt that said “March Fourth Marching Band”.  After a hurried conversation, I learned that this non-conventional marching band from Portland Oregon celebrated our holiday too. We quickly became online friends and have followed and kept in touch with the band over the years. I still listen to their music regularly, one of the best workout playlists! During one of their national tours, they even performed at the Kennedy Center. Obviously a show we would not miss. Ava was age two at the time, one of the stilt-walkers (I did say, unconventional) put her on stage with the rest of the band. If you dig hard enough, you can find that video somewhere in the archives of the Kennedy center website.

Our celebrations continued while the family was geographically close. Now, we are separated by miles up and down the east coast, but it does not change the spirit of the day for the McNallys. March Fourth will always be a family holiday for our whole crew. Holding special memories for us all and encouraging each of us to March Forth on our journeys and better our lives in a year’s time.

I invite you to join in our McNally family tradition today. Set a new goal, tell someone about it, post it on Facebook, tag me in it… and I’ll hold you accountable to it next year,  I may even have a revised golden boot award for the most deserving recipient!