Kim's always taken the lead on coming up with ideas for Christmas and birthday presents for the kids. It's pretty rare for me to come up with an idea on my own, let alone go ahead and make the purchase. Last Christmas was an exception. My great idea -- 3 tickets to the New Kids on the Block / Backstreet Boys "reunion" tour.
Hannah was somewhere around 6-7 years old and Nick would have been 4-5 when the Backstreet Boys were at the height of their careers. At the time, we lived on Maple Avenue right next door to the Boslet's. The Boslet's had two girls, Emma and Tess. Emma was Nick's age and Tess was about 15 months younger.
Emma, Tess, Hannah, and Nick played together constantly. There were a couple of recurring themes whenever they were together. They were all into the Land Before Time videos so Nick spent a lot of time chasing the girls while roaring. We had a bunch of stick horses and cowboy hats and the four kids could spend hours in our basement running in circles pretending they were in the Wild West. Finally, Emma and Hannah were huge Backstreet Boys fans. They used to put on dance routines and they'd always get Nick and Tess to participate.
When we moved to Big Branch Drive, the dinosaur games and stick horse riding stopped. But, the Backstreet Boys stayed. In the first couple years that we lived here, whenever the kids were in the basement playing, they'd put on their CD's and it was usually the Backstreet Boys that got the most airplay.
In any event, when I heard that the Backstreet Boys were going on tour this year with the New Kids on the Block, I thought "What a perfect gift for Hannah, Nick, and Jay." Somehow, I seemed to forget that Nick had grown up and was 17 years old and Jay, besides being 14, had really been too young for the whole Backstreet Boys thing in the first place. Oh, well. Too late. I'd already bought the tickets so the three of them were going.
Last night was the show at the Verizon Center in DC. All 5 of us went into town. We parked the car, got the three of them some dinner, made plans to meet up after the show, and then walked over to the arena. The sidewalks were filled with people going to the show. I'd guess that 90% of them were 20-35 year-old women having a girls night out while reliving their childhoods. Another 5% were gay guys of the same age who were doing the same thing. The final 5% were husbands and boyfriends who were tagging along for the night. And then, of course, there were Nick and Jay.
As we said our good-byes and the three of them went into the arena, Kim looked at me and said "I can't believe those boys are going to that show." "They'll be fine," I said, "It will be fun." While saying that out loud, in my head I was telling myself that I was creating one of those great shared memories for them that they'll remember in 20 years, asking each other "What was Dad thinking when he got us NKOTBSB tickets?"
Anyway, they made it through the show. Hannah, of course, loved it. Her first comment,as soon as we saw her, was "That was awesome." Once in the car, Nick told us some great stories. He gave us a play-by-play of the antics of all the people seated around them. My favorite was his story about the group of guys a couple rows in front of them who mimicked every dance move that NKOTBSB made, right down to tearing off their own shirts when Donny Wahlberg ripped of his. Jay just told us that there were tons of women screaming continuously and that he was glad it was over.
All in all, I think they had a good time. But I'll probably take this year off from buying any Christmas presents for them.