We took the 36 downtown and then got on the Madison bus that heads out over to the United Center ... we left early so that The Girls could do the "pre-show" activities where folks get to mess around on the stage and meet the clowns and stuff (Daughter #2 wanted to spend nearly all the time trying on the glittery costumes!). If one thing was "a deal", it was the seats ... we only paid $10.50 each and we were, while high up, able to see the whole thing, something that I suspect the folks in the higher-priced areas below had a challenge with. What was not a deal was everything else. Of course, since we'd gone with "the cheap seats" we didn't feel so bad about getting The Girls some goodies (like snowcones in big reusable circus-themed plastic mug things), but it hurt like hell to spend $5.00 on a soda and $6.00 on a box of popcorn! I guess that's no worse than at the movies, but when they're pulling down $15 for a program, you start to get punch-drunk from the cost of everything!
Daughter #1 had met some of the performers when they'd done a visit to her school last week (good promotion, eh?), and was trying to find the same folks during the pre-show. I think she really enjoyed the whole thing (and, with the pre-show stuff, it lasted about 3.5 hours!) ... her younger sister got bored, though, and for a while there we thought we might have to leave early (we were saved by a well-timed intermission).
We had planned on taking the bus back to the loop and checking out the Xmas tree in Daley Plaza (I think they were doing the "lighting" of it today), along with some holiday window browsing, but as we were leaving the United Center we ran into another family from our building who then offered us a ride, so we ended up back here earlier than anticipated. All in all, it wasn't too bad a day (once we got out of the house), and the over-all cost for it was about what we would have spent just for tickets on the lower level, so I guess that's not so bad.