While many families get to be at home on Christmas Day, many first responders must work during the holiday. For them, Christmas Day looks a little different.<\/p>\n
“We played basketball, wiffleball, scooter riding. She brought a scooter that was a hit,” said Jessie Lilly and Chelsea McConnell, two fire wives who were visiting the station with their kids.<\/p>\n
Thursday, Lilly and McConnell celebrated Christmas, not at home, but inside Fort Worth Fire Station 14.<\/p>\n
“The fireman had prepared some food for us, and then we brought some sides and so we all had lunch together too,” said Lilly. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Holiday or not, first responders are on the clock, no matter the day.<\/p>\n
“This was actually our first year to experience it,” said McConnell. “It’s been really cool to get together, get to know everyone, you know, kind of bond and spend time with each other.”<\/p>\n
Lieutenant Brant Frazier said, while it can be tough, this is the job they signed up for.<\/p>\n
“The majority of us are used to working on the holidays,” said Frazier. “I think being in the emergency services, look at doctors, nurses, police officers, anybody who’s in a civil servant type of position, those are all selfless service positions. So, you know, we’re here to serve others before ourselves.”<\/p>\n
And that selfless service was put into action on Thursday, when the crew was called out to assist with a small fire nearby. Frazier said making the day feel as close to home as possible helps keep morale strong.<\/p>\n
“Christmas day, it’s no different. We still run all the same call types. People still get sick, accidents still happen,” he said. “To be able to see mom or dad, to see them at work and actually see what they’re doing and still have that family lifestyle, I think is as good as it is for the kids and the wives, I think it’s equally as important for the guys to keep their morale up as well.”<\/p>\n
For many of these firefighters, this job is a calling, and while Christmas may look different for their families, it’s these small moments they are grateful for.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Lilly and McConnell said they want to make Christmas bigger and better next year, hopefully adding a Christmas tree to Station 14.<\/p>\n
“You just kind of learn and adapt and keep moving,” McConnell said.<\/p>\n
\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While many families get to be at home on Christmas Day, many first responders must work during the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":472205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,44679,7371,10173,7372,40808,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-472204","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-christmas","10":"tag-fort-worth","11":"tag-fort-worth-fire-department","12":"tag-fortworth","13":"tag-holiday-season","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-tx","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115784319094319833","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}