Traditions

I believe in traditions and I try so hard to make them happen in our family, but I'm still not sure which traditions are going to mean anything to my girls and to our family years from now. Last year I took the girls and my mom to a dance performance at BYU called Christmas Around the World. My memory of that night is sweet and I remember all of us loving it. So this year I was excited to let everyone know I bought tickets again and I was looking forward to the making of a new tradition with just us girls.

My mom's reaction was as ecstatic as I had expected it would be. She loves stuff like that and she loves to get out and do things. And she is always grateful. Leah was predictably agreeable, although she rarely gets overly excited about much.

Brita and Meg both responded similarly at separate times by saying, "Ohhhhh! That is soooooo looooong! Do I  have to go?" YES! Of course you have to go and I couldn't even believe it was a conversation we were having. Don't they know how lucky they are that they get to go to that kind of stuff?! But then I remembered being a kid myself and sometimes the cultural experiences were a little lost on me.

I wonder if the reason I appreciate some cultural stuff now is because my parents gave me opportunities back then. So maybe there is hope and I have to give the kiddos kudos for going along because I asked them to.

I even bought popcorn to keep them occupied for a while. And after about an hour a strange thing happened. My legs started getting tired of the cramped space and my back started to hurt and I began to wonder when the thing was going to end. I thought maybe thirty minutes, but then thirty minutes dragged into another hour and then I remembered that even I thought that it was looooong.

The dancing was phenomenal and the costumes were breathtakingingly beautiful and stunning. But after about an hour of dance after dance after dance, it's easy to start losing interest. And that's when Meg started whining and wanting to go home and she put her legs up on her seat so she could put her head on my shoulder and that meant her feet were pressing on the girl who was sitting next to her. But I hoped that the girl would be kind and I didn't insist that Meg sit up because for heaven's sake, I wanted to do the same thing to my mom who was sitting next to me.

And then Leah (who was sitting one row above us with Brita) started taunting Meg from behind. So of course Meg kept turning around to slap Leah's foot and that encouraged Leah enough that she kept doing it. I had to put an end to that real quick which may or may not have involved swearing. I'm sure those within earshot were impressed.

But the show finally ended and when we got home, Meg got her animals ready for a party...

and then she laughed hysterically because she threw her underwear up in the air and they landed on top of her boot. (Take a look at that boot, by the way. This is the boot Meg dragged me to four different shoe stores to find because none of the boots at the other stores were exactly right for her. She was looking for a rainbow boot with sparkles. This boot is SO my little Meg it makes my heart sing. And the pink star underwear INSIDE the boot is icing on the cake.)

The spectacular show may have been just okay, but having your unders land on your shoe? That's the showstopper right there.

I'm glad I thought to take a picture of my beautiful mom with my beautiful girls standing outside the Marriott Center - the place where traditions begin and possibly die. Maybe we've got another year in us, and then again, maybe we don't. Time will tell.

But whether this becomes a tradition that stands the test of time or not, we girls have some memories to hold onto. The memories of me with my four favorite girls get to stay with me forever and that's what makes it all worth it.