One out of a million

(L-R: sister-in-law Emily aka EZ, sister Kimmy, Me aka the freakishly tall looking one compared to everyone else, Mom)

December 17, 2011
There was over a million ticket requests to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert. And I was somehow lucky enough to win a set of four. My family used to go every year, back before the Church changed the way they give out the free concert tickets. The secret was bypassing the "waiting room" and getting, oh, 70 or 80 tickets at a time! It became more of a game to see how many we could get during the four hours you could get tickets online. But then everything changed to a lottery-like system and we never won tickets again. The concert was a special event that would kick-off the Christmas season.

So you can imagine my excitement when I found out I had won four tickets to this year's concert! I was beaming and practically jumping up and down, shrieking hallelujahs for all to hear! I invited my mom, sister, and sister-in-law to go with me for a girls' night out.

Then Jeff broke the bad news.

USU was going to a bowl game in Boise. And he wasn't missing it for anything. That meant I now had two dwarfs who had no one to watch them. Jeff's parents were busy. My little brother had a dance. And I just didn't know who I could leave my kids with seeing as how I've only had family watch them and they had to deal with bedtime. My sweet friend Libbey said she'd take them.... on her one weekend at home with no plans. Libbey has two kiddos herself, a boy about 10 months older than Pearl and a baby girl about six months younger than Cole. We've gone over to their house before and always had fun. It was perfect! I told Pearl she was going to Libbey's house and that Libbey was a really fun mom... she always does fun projects, plays games, and has art stuff. To which Pearl replied, "Not like you then mom. You're grouchy!"

Very funny. But with a babysitter willing to take my two kids, I wasn't about to argue with her. Besides, it's true. Libbey is a fun mom and lately I've been really grouchy!

So after a day of shopping at Gardner's Village, we dropped off the kids and headed Downtown. About 20,000 other concert goers had the same idea as we did for dinner. Converge upon the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, hungry and wondering if waiting in the long lines was going to be worth it. It was. We had a warm pot pie with plenty of time to get inside to hear Nathan Gunn and Jane Seymour with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square. I think the anticipation of the evening and the flood of memories from past years (my Granmda Jewkes died five days before Christmas eight years ago and the year shed died was the first year we'd gone to the concert... each year after that was sort of a time for my Jewkes side to get together and remember her PLUS today would have been her 78th birthday) sort of dampened my approval of the concert. Don't get me wrong, it was beautiful, especially the last song. After the concert, we walked around Temple Square to admire the millions of Christmas lights.

Here's hoping for one in a million next year. Christmas just isn't the same with the MoTab concert.