So back in Novemeber I was very very lucky to get a call from Lainey at RTE to say I had won tickets to the much-anticipated and most watched show of the year in Ireland, The Late Late Toy Show!! I was literally shouting down the phone at the poor girl I couldn’t believe it and thought it was a joke! 40,000 people applied online for tickets during October when they open the online application form so for me to get two tickets was amazing, they are like gold dust! So for anyone who like myself thought it was only family and friends who got tickets to the show….nope, it’s a totally random pick from the online applications!

So 2 days later myself and my partner arrived at RTE studios in Donnybrook. We were sooooo excited as you can imagine! The toy show has been going since 1975 and is one of the most memorable things about Christmas as a child for many many Irish people across the world, myself included. It was all we would talk about as kids in school in the run up to the show! My Nana would make me cocoa and we’d sit and watch it…..pencil and paper ready to write down our wish list for Santa from the toys demonstrated by the kids!

Anyway all our names were checked and we were brought into the foyer where they had wine and Christmas hats & headbands for us to wear and get into the festive spirit. Most of us already had Christmas jumpers on We mingled for a bit (I was talking to a lovely woman named Niamh who was also amazed she got tickets and we both found out we had a keen interest in our angels! I think they sent us both a lot of luck!) and then we were led into the studio where we were stunned by the amazing Late Late Toy Show set! We were then seated according to our ticket number. The audience was even given a special part in the opening of the show haha. While everyone at home was busy getting there goodies ready to watch the show we were busy ‘rehearsing’ our part and being warmed up by one of the guys from the music band lol! We had to hold up big cardboard imitation tiles so when the camera zoomed over it looked like tiles! The theme for the show was Mary Poppins (one of my fave childhood movies) and Ryan Tubridy was right in front of us where he popped out of the chimney and sang!

Then the show started and it was honestly so amazing to be there as the show was happening and to see all the work that goes into getting everything right. The whole crew are just amazing they do be running around like mad, you don’t see the half of it from watching n the tv so we were thrilled to see all the action live! Also during the breaks Ryan and the band would be talking to us, he was great craic very down to earth and friendly.

As always the kids made the show they were so funny and all the kids demonstrating the toys and performing were just brilliant and so brave as I can imagine how daunting it would be being so small in a big set with a big audience! My favourite act was The Cup Song performed by Saoirse Bates & the choir from St Brigid’s School in Killester. I think the whole audience got chills, they performed it so well with great energy!

^Me and my bag of goodies and baby bump lol!^

Of course another exciting part of the night was them famous lines ‘And…..there’s one for everybody in the audience!!’ Yes we came home with one of each thing given away, we were absolutely over the moon with what we got! Honestly, myself & my partner were having a really bad year financially and personally so the vouchers and kids toys we were given made our Christmas….I’m not just saying that but we really didn’t know how we were going to afford Christmas and it was only 3 weeks away. So we will forever thank or lucky stars we won those tickets it made a really bad year turn out to be pretty OK one and gave us hope for 2014.

Again thanks so much to the team at RTE and of course Ryan Tubridy who all put so much work, effort and organisation into the show. The atmosphere was and buzz that night was brilliant! I’ll really appreciate watching the show from home this year knowing how much work goes into the show
Yaz