Not Every Idea Can Be A Winner
If we're going to Indiana for Thanksgiving, we're going to a Pacers game. It's just what we do and what we've always done. Forever. Or, at least for the past fifteen years.
In other words, Alexis knows no other way.
But the NBA is full of money-hungry jerks who like to destroy family traditions and crush children's hopes and dreams, so this year there was no game for us to go to. I kind of wanted to go down to Conseco Fieldhouse and just glare at the building as a sign of protest, but that didn't seem entirely productive, so instead we decided to try something new. Something adventurous. We decided to honor one of Alexis' requests.
She's been begging to go to Light Up Night forever. By that I mean she has been wanting to go to Pittsburgh's Light Up Night, but that hasn't quite worked out just yet. We figured a Light Up Night is a Light Up Night is a Light Up Night. Let's go to the tree lighting in Indy and just call it Light Up Night! Tah-dah!
It just so happened that it was 50-something degrees outside on the night of the event, so if we were going to take one for the team and go to a gathering of stupid people around a few sparkly lights and some people singing really bad songs, this was the year for it. Oh, did I say something mean? WHOOPS. It's just that I'm not real impressed by a bunch of high school kids singing "Silent Night" while dressed in sparkly green dresses. We can talk about that stance again in about ten years when it's my kid up on that stage, but for now, BLURGH. Also, ZzzzzzzZZZZzzzzzZzZzzZZZz.
But I'm sure your kid is super talented and way exciting when on stage. I'm only referring to those Indy kids. Ahem.
Alexis was REALLY SUPER EXCITED about the prospect of heading down to the tree lighting. We had to pry her off of the ceiling she was so excited. ARE WE GOING YET? HOW ABOUT NOW? IS IT TIME FOR CHRISTMAS LIGHTS NOW, PLEEEEEASE?
She might be my kid. It's possible.
I won't go into the details of how it all came together, but let me just throw a I TOLD YOU SO out there. I should always be in charge of shenanigans that involve Christmas lights. ALWAYS. Once we got through a series of events that involved me wiseness being ignored, we found ourselves in the middle of this:
That would be 100,000 people all trying to stand in the exact same spot. There was pushing. There was shoving. There was yelling. There was groping. It was like being in the front row of a Justin Bieber concert right after he threw a pair of his panties into the crowd. MASS. CHAOS.
Look, here's the thing. Indy has been doing this little tree lighting thing for 49 years. In my mind, that means they might sort of know what they're doing. My mind is wrong. The realty is that there was a total and complete lack of crowd control to the point that the whole experience was miserable. Alexis had to be carried the whole time so she wouldn't be crushed. I got in a fight with a guy who kept shoving me into a kid just a little older than Alexis. There was drama with some drunk woman who was certain we were the only reason she couldn't just ooze her way through a few hundred people and get to the street corner. It was worse than the disaster that was the one-gate-thousands-of-people-ten-minutes-to-get-in debacle that was the NHL Alumni Game in Pittsburgh.
MERRY FREAKIN CHRISTMAS, INDIANAPOLIS.
I'm going to need basketball to never be cancelled again. Please and thank you.
Oh, and Alexis, she of SO MUCH EXCITEMENT over the prospect of going to the tree lighting? As we walked back to the car after an hour of being stuck in the middle of a not-moving crowd, she turned to me and said, "Momma, Light Up Night wasn't what I expected. I didn't like it at all."
I agree, kid.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Reader Comments (3)
We went to Pgh's Light-Up-Night last year. It was insanely crowded, then there was a shooting.
We didn't go this year.
And this is why I avoid many so-called "great" holiday traditions.
At least now she knows, right?
That's too bad. The lighting of the State Christmas tree in Lansing is always fun for my kids. There is a light parade, the lighting of the tree and then fire works. This year there was even a concert by Disney star Cody Simpson (which I could have totally lived without). I think we do security and crowd control pretty well. I know this year there were State Troopers, local police, volunteers and cameras everywhere.