Be sure to reach the end of this article to see the full video!

Military families have to face the fact that they may not get to spend their holidays with their loved ones. This mom thought that her family was one of them.

Everyone wants to spend the holidays with their nearest and dearest. It’s one of the most universally understandable wishes imaginable. But when a family member is serving in the armed forces overseas, this wish cannot always become a reality.

This holiday season, there will be thousands of servicemen and women stationed abroad. They won’t get to relax at home with family like the rest of us.

When active members of the military do get to go home for the holidays, it’s always an amazing event.

But certain service people are doing something even more amazing. They’ve been able to get time off over the holidays and not told their families. Instead, they show up on their families’ doorsteps and give them the happy surprise of a lifetime!

Every year, there are numerous videos that surface online of people coming home for the holidays without their families’ knowledge.

Those videos are often heartwarming. And here is one of the best.

The marine in this video had learned that he could come home for Christmas. He only told one person in his entire family: his brother in law, Deral Meek Jr.

The two met up at the airport, and then drove to the Marine’s mother’s home.

Wearing his full military uniform, the marine knocked on his mom’s door.

The dogs inside started barking happily. Clearly, they could already smell who was waiting for them.

Then the mom opened the door and literally screamed at the top of her lungs.

She couldn’t believe her eyes. Her hands started flapping at her face, trying to calm herself down.

The mom hugged her son so tightly, and the son couldn’t stop laughing and smiling at the camera.

The video cut out there, but it’s easy to imagine what happened next.

The rest of the family would have given the marine some big hugs, and the dogs would have jumped all over him!

Shortly after recording this video, the marine’s brother-in-law uploaded it to YouTube. It soon went viral.

To date, the video has managed to gain over 7 million views, 59,000 likes and 2,200 comments.

People have been saying things like this:

Of course, while these moments are quite rightly full of joy, it’s also important to remember and appreciate those who don’t get to go home for the holidays.

The mom in this video knows that her son has been through so much and that she’s very lucky to have him home. As he was home for Christmas, that meant that he had to miss Thanksgiving and other important events, like family birthdays.

But the great thing about this particular story is the fact that the family members were really able to enjoy having the young marine home this Christmas.

Sometimes, you need to spend a little time apart from the people you truly love to have an appreciation of them.

Not everyone is part of a military family. But videos like this are able to help us understand what it is like to be in one. These families are incredible, and thanks to their serviceman or woman family member, they deserve as much respect as is possible.

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Source: Deral Meek Jr