Have a great time - never mind the tears (3,6,3)

'have a' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I cannot tell whether this works.

'great time never mind the tears' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'great' could be 'g' (abbreviation in place names) and 'g' is present in the answer.
'time' could be 't' (abbreviation) and 't' is found in the answer.
an anagram of 'the' is 'eth' which is located in the left over letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...

Can you help me to learn more?