It was going to be the best Christmas gift I ever gave my parents!

We were all in Manhattan (i.e. Disneyland for Adults), and my husband and I had enough tickets to take them to the Radio City Christmas Spectacular starring the Rockettes!

OK. A brief word about the Rockettes here before I go on. I can't help myself. I just love the Rockettes, especially at Christmas time when they pull out all the stops and dress up like reindeer wearing fishnet stockings. Yes! America! What a country!

So anyway. We had tickets. We'd purchased them online as soon as we found out we were going to be in New York for a weekend in December with my parents, and we could hardly wait to surprise them.

"Meet us at Radio City Music Hall!" we said the night of the performance as we scurried off to save our places in line.

It was a cold night in Manhattan, but the thought of the surprise we had planned for my parents kept us warm inside. Sort of. OK, not really. In fact, not at all. The truth is I pretty much got frostbite that night. Which almost made my nose fall off. Stupid nose! But whatever.

The point is we were HAPPY because we were doing something nice for my parents, and besides, Manhattan is hard to resist at Christmas. The town is lit up like a "Roman Candle." Or possibly a "Bottle Rocket." Or maybe even a "Silver Salute." Or any of those fireworks Boy Scouts like to buy in Evanston when their mothers aren't around.

Only my husband and I encountered a little problem once we got to the door and showed the usher our tickets. Turned out our tickets were for the NEXT weekend. You know. The next weekend when WE WERE ALL GOING TO BE BACK HOME IN UTAH! WHERE THERE ARE NO ROCKETTES!

I felt completely ill (in addition to "not warm") inside. How did we manage to screw things up so badly?

"Are there any seats left for tonight's show?" I desperately asked the usher, who was the size of Andre the Giant.

He laughed an Andre-the-Giant laugh as he showed people (not us) inside.

"Can we get a refund?"

He laughed another A. the G. laugh.

"But we came all the way from Salt Lake to see the show!" I said.

For some reason this got his attention, although I'm sure we weren't the first rubes in the history of the world who'd gotten performance dates mixed up. Andre took our tickets, promised to see what he could do, and told us to wait. Then he disappeared inside the Music Hall.

Frankly, I was pretty short on hope. This was New York after all, where human beings try to run over other human beings with taxis. Hardly the city of Brotherly Love. No. That special distinction is reserved for friendly Philadelphia!