AUSTIN, Texas — Trays of food and baked goods take over Melanie and Jay Holtz's kitchen counter as they prepare to load them into their car.
It's food that took weeks to prepare for Christmas Eve and none that's meant for them.
Since 2014, Melanie and Jay have been cooking and delivering meals to the crew at Austin Fire Station 18.
"They're my favorite," Melanie said. "I just love them."
The couple says they make enough food for Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas breakfast to make sure all three shifts have a chance to get a bite.
"We go in on Christmas Eve and we bring them a full dinner and we usually eat with them depending on how busy they are at the house," Melanie said.
It's a firehouse full of firefighters who are not only given these meals but also a letter explaining why.
"It's from my dad and Jay," Melanie said. "Just explaining, kind of describing who Matt was and what an amazing guy he was, and why there's all this food in his memory."
Matt is their son who died 10 years ago when he was just 23. Struggling to find how to cope without their only son, Melanie was given advice that she and her husband never thought would lead to a holiday tradition.
"It was about six months after ... Losing my mind and a friend of mine suggested that I do something with my time," Melanie said.
So she turned to cooking and baking, which is a passion she said her son always had.
"Matt loved to cook, so it's a way for me to give back ... Through a passion that he loved," Melanie said. "Every batch of cookies that I make, or every casserole that I make, I'm thinking of Matt."
The first year started with five fire stations across Austin. Melanie said she chose first responders to get her meals because they were the ones who were there during the worst day of her life.
"They're away from their families. They wake up on Christmas morning and they don't get to be with their kids, kind of like with me. And it's just a way that I can say thank you for what they do," Melanie said.
But she quickly trimmed it down to one station after discovering some stations get more than others on the holidays, which led her to call the city to find out which station is the busiest. It was Station 18.
"We were here on shift and she actually just came and knocked on the door, and I was actually the first point of contact," said Isaac Rodriguez, who is a captain at the firehouse. "She explained to us the situation, exactly what she was looking to try to do [and] if we would be receptive to that."
And for nearly a decade and counting, they have been.
"We pretty much consider her kind of like a station mother, like a den mother ... We always make sure that we keep her in our hearts, her and her family throughout the year, and especially around this time of year. So we're very lucky to have her in our life," Rodriguez said.
For the Holtz's, they explained that the holiday tradition is not a void that fills the loss they have experienced, but a good distraction that has forged unlikely friendships. Because every year, regardless of what the two have going on, the meals to Station 18 will always be prioritized.