A lot of people have celebrated birthdays during quarantine. Families had to cancel kids’ birthday parties, people who had birthday trips planned postponed, and people turning 21 weren’t able to go to a bar at midnight. People around the world are finding new ways to make birthdays as special as they can; one way is a drive-by birthday parade. Friends and family decorate their cars with birthday signs and drive by honking and screaming, “Happy birthday!”

Last Thursday my brother turned 21; we knew he wasn’t going to be able to celebrate the way he wanted to, so we decided to try to make it as special as possible. Since the new trend is the birthday parade, we, of course, had to have a surprise one for him, although we weren’t too sure what his reaction would be since he told us he didn’t want one.

We had the lawn decorated with happy 21st birthday signs and smiley faces. I decorated 21 cardboard numbers with cutouts from leftover beer boxes to add to the decorations. All day he wanted to go to the beer distributor and walk around to see what they had; he said it was overwhelming and he couldn’t decide what to get, so he grabbed something random.

We had a good turnout for the parade; all our friends and family came, and my brother’s friends from high school and college helped celebrate his big day. He was surprised and ended up liking the parade; we were happy with the turnout!

— Mary Melnick, social media and editorial coordinator