Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra with Mom - EPIC

The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra on Temple Square's annual Christmas concert is always a hot ticket. We usually luck out and get tickets in the online selection process. This year we weren't so lucky. I was bummed because the guest performer was Kristin Chenoweth, a very bubbly performer who has been on broadway and TV. The timing was awful, so I figured it was just as well that we didn't get tickets. It was the week after Mel got home and we moved into mom and dad's basement and the week before Kamiko and Bekki got married. How would I make time for it?

Well, my friend Amy Christensen went to the concert on Thursday night and said it was the BEST ever. She said I had to go. So, on Friday morning, after getting my hair cut, I called mom and asked if she wanted to give it a try. She said "sure."

We ate a quick dinner and left the house around 4:30 pm. I had a plan.

We got a great parking place based on where Amy's husband, Dane, suggested. We got to temple square and I was going to have mom wait in the standby line while I tried to score tickets from concert goers as they approached the conference center. The plan had to change when we saw the standby line. It was soooooo long. It went on and on. Wow. Mom and I decided to just go together and try our hand at getting tickets. I had made a sign that said we were looking for 2 tickets. We went to the southeast corner of the conference center, close to the street, to wait for concert goers to cross the street toward us. I wanted us to be the first ones seen. There were many people near the conference center, but none were bold enough to stand right by the street light. Many were holding up one or two fingers. I was holding a sign and mom and I obviously wanted to attend.

A few people walked by. One couple said they were sorry that they didn't have extra tickets. We joked that I was using my 80 year old mom to get people's sympathy. After only about 15 minutes of standing on the corner with our sign, a nice couple told us they had tickets and wished us a Merry Christmas. We were so thrilled. We had excellent seats, too. Just like Amy and Dane said, it was spectacular. We loved it so much. It was really nice to hear a performer who was a person of faith sing to us. She said how grateful she was that the person who offered the opening prayer prayed for her. She said that rarely happens in her business. We even got to sing along with the choir. So I've sung with the Tabernacle Choir! We were so glad we took the time to attend and were so grateful to the nice people who shared their extra tickets with us.

Side note...we sat by a very lovely lady who said that this summer will mark 50 years that she has volunteered on Temple Square in one capacity or another. She's began singing in the choir when she was 21, has been a tour guide, and currently answers phones at the ticket office. I joked that they probably had a lot of angry phone calls with the popularity of the concert. Sadly, it's true. I asked if anyone ever calls to say thank you. She said no. I'm gonna try to remember to call and thank them the next time I get tickets.

We don't know what got us noticed more: my orange coat or mom's age.