Inside Young Sheldon’s Wrap Party: Boss Steve Holland Says 'Final Goodbye' to the Cast Was 'Upbeat' (Exclusive)

Saying goodbye can be difficult, but for the Young Sheldon cast, their final farewell was surprisingly joyful.

Soon after the show’s final day of filming on April 16, the cast and crew gathered for a wrap party that paid tribute to the seven years they spent together filming the CBS comedy, which airs its final episodes on Thursday, May 16. Many in attendance were in an “upbeat celebratory mode,” executive producer and co-showrunner Steve Holland tells PEOPLE.

“There’d been a lot of tearful farewells up to that point, so I think people were ready to have a good time,” he says. “They had asked for people to send their photographs from over the years, and they had a big slideshow going on several screens throughout the thing of people's personal pictures from behind the scenes and from on set.”

The visual tributes also served as reminders of how much the show’s younger stars — Iain Armitage, Raegan Revord and Montana Jordan — grew up during production. Armitage, 15, was just 8 years old when he stepped on the set of Young Sheldon while Revord, now 16, was 9 when the show premiered. Meanwhile, Jordan, 21, was 14 when he auditioned for the character of Georgie.

“[The slideshows] really gave this different sort of perspective,” Holland says. “You really see time passing, because you really see these kids going from children to young adults. You’ll see … they just looked so impossibly young seven years ago.”

During an interview with PEOPLE in February, Armitage acknowledged the huge impact the show has had on him, not only jumpstarting his acting career but introducing him to a chosen family that included Revord, Jordan, Annie Potts, Zoe Perry, Lance Barber and Emily Osment,

“It's been half my life, which is kind of wild to think about, but just so fun, so wonderful, and I couldn't have asked for a better way to grow up,” he says. “Every single person I get to work with, I feel so honored to get to be working with and get to be their costar or … get to be part of their work and part of their livelihood.”

At PaleyFest 2024 in April, Revord told PEOPLE how she grew up thinking of her Young Sheldon costars, especially Jordan, as real-life “siblings.”

“We're telling people, ‘Yeah, we're actually brother and sister,’ and I love it I actually now have my own brothers,” she said. “I'm always texting Montana. I'm like, ‘Hey, I'm going to annoy you and ask if you want to do something today. Come say hi to me.”

Jordan told PEOPLE at the same event that his onscreen and real-life families offered him the “best of both worlds.”

“I got two older sisters in real life, and on the show, I’ve got a little brother and a little sister,” said Jordan, adding that growing up on the set of Young Sheldon was something he “never imagined” he would do. “From a place where I'm from, a small little town in Texas, I got 1,200 people in my town. This kind of sh-- don't happen. … If they didn't bless me with this opportunity of being on this show, I wouldn't be here right now. So I'm very thankful. I thank the man above every day that I'm here.”

Young Sheldon's adult cast members — including Perry — told PEOPLE in April they will undoubtedly miss their younger costars.

“They're practically adults now. Iain standing next to me is taller than me, and I think he started here,” Perry told PEOPLE in April. “It's remarkable. They all started out as excellent actors, and to see them grow and really flourish and deepen their skill sets, it's remarkable.”

Potts, for her part, welled up with emotion thinking about her time with Armitage, Revord and Jordan.

“They were so little when we started. They were this big. And now look at them, my god,” she said. “They all turned out so beautiful and so sweet. We feel like we had a hand in raising them, and they've turned out pretty good. It's something to be proud of.”

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The two-part series finale of Young Sheldon airs Thursday, May 16, at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.