Our Christmas Date

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My cell phone rang… “Hey, Mom!” It was the Gym Rat. “What is going on Saturday night?” he asked. I was still in bed and my brain was a little fuzzy, but I tried to focus on my internal calendar. “Nothing,” I mumbled. “Why? Do you need something?” I rolled over and snuggled up with Baby Doll. My sweetie had long since headed off for work. “No,” he responded. “But my friend, Jake, has some tickets to see The Forgotten Carols and Amanda can’t go so I thought I’d see if you and Dad want them.”

I was listening now! I had seen commercials for this show on TV and it looked pretty awesome. “That would be fun!” I enthused, not knowing for sure that my sweetie would think so. “But I think you should try to get a different date first.” (My ultimate goal is to try to convince him, rather unsuccessfully, to find a wife.) On Saturday morning he brought over the tickets. I’m not sure how hard he tried to find a date, but at that point I was just excited for myself. My sweetie seemed a bit reluctant, but an evening alone without any kids (regardless of the activity) appealed to him.

We dressed up in our Christmas finery and headed for Cottonwood High School. After a significant hike from the parking lot on the wrong side of the building, we finally entered the school. I couldn’t believe the size of the auditorium! It had 3000 seats, more than three times the size of our high school. Our seats were in the balcony, but we still had a fine view of the stage. I leaned forward in anticipation as the lights dimmed.

Michael McLean is an amazing entertainer and we were not disappointed. The story was actually a musical that he had written about a nurse who didn’t have the Christmas spirit. Like A Christmas Carol, by the time the story was over, she became the happiest one around. The music was awesome and I even convinced my sweetie to plunk down twenty bucks to buy the DVD so we could watch it with the kids.

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We headed off for dinner at Sconecutter and even though we showed up well before 11:00, they insisted that we take our food to go. That was a little disappointing, so we ate in the Smith’s parking lot. It seems that every date we go on has to end with a quick trip to the grocery store! We only had a gallon or so of milk left and that isn’t enough to get us through to Monday.

We wandered the store until nearly midnight, talking and laughing about the show and other Christmas plans. I tossed in six loaves of bread, some peanuts that were on sale, and  my sweetie hauled in six gallons of milk and some Froot Loops so he could take a break from his usual job of fixing breakfast on Sunday morning. Seventy-five dollars later, we headed to the car. As we were driving home, I pulled out my cell phone to check for messages. There was only one from Teach, it read, “I picked up some milk.” I now have 13 gallons of milk in my fridge! I wish I could say that will get me through the week, but my sweetie did buy Froot Loops…