Everyone's a Critic

Although I grew up in Indiana, I had never been to the Yuletide until 2005 when my boyfriend and I purchased tickets for ourselves and my cousin and her husband. We girls made the boys dress up a bit giving us an excuse to buy new outfits and "doll up" a bit! From the minute the curtain went up, I was in love with the show. We left that evening feeling more like kids than the exhausted 25 year olds who were busting our bums to make names for ourselves in the working world. Tap Dancing Santas??!! How on Earth had we celebrated the past 24 Christmases without knowing about Tap Dancing Santas??!!! The next year, I had moved to Indy, and my boyfriend surprised me with tickets to the show as an early Christmas gift. He scored big points for that one! We talked about making the Yuletide a tradition for the two of us, and then in 2007, it all changed. Jordan said he again had tickets to the show, and I was again out buying clothes and thinking about suprising him with dinner at Oakley's Bistro before the show. At intermisson, we went to get our picture taken in front of the tree as we had the two years before. The photographer suggested that I sit my purse on the floor between my feet, and when I stood back up...Jordan was kneeling next to me with my dream ring in his shaking hands! I was so stunned that I'm pretty sure I used a word that RARELY comes out of my mouth before bursting into tears of joy!! Everyone in the lobby exploded with applause and someone came over with two glasses of champagne for us as we received hugs from total strangers who were all laughing and smiling along with us. The Chadon photographer (who I completley had forgotten about) told us that she had just kept clicking the whole time, and we have an amazing record of our perfect moment. We were married September 27th, 2008...and guess what I got for Christmas? Yuletide of course!! This time however, they were for a specific date...December 18th, the same as our engagement. 2009 was the same, 2010 tickets have been purchased, and this will continue as long as ISO keeps up the show. We have a picture from each year in an album with plenty of empty pages for the future. No matter what the year has been like, we always look forward to our standing "date-night". Thank you to all the amazing people who work so hard on the show, you make December 18th one of my favorite dates of the year!

Name: Rebecca Ude
City: Carmel