Better news! After being copied by the TODAY show on the 29th, our New Year's Eve was GREAT, with loads of families purchasing and enjoying the kit as part of their celebrations!
Tori Spelling even shared her tree on Instagram! Complete with golden tree topper, streamers and our ornament, she and her tree looked AMAZING!!! AND to top it off, she shared our book and the wishes for the New Year that her children had written by hand. All ready to be tucked inside our Wish Holder ornament!
And if you look closely at what her children wrote, your heart will melt. Many thanks, Tori, for sharing this awesome New Year's Eve tradition with 1M Instagram followers!
]]>Called. Cut. Copied. Imagine our excitement when we were asked to URGENTLY send more units of our kit to the TODAY Show on Dec. 7th! Our product was going to be featured in a special New Year's Eve segment with Hoda and Kathie Lee, to be recorded on Dec. 12th and airing on the 29th.
Because the air date was so close to New Year's Eve, and it would be very difficult for viewers to get our kit in time for their celebrations, we were then CUT from the segment on Dec. 11. This was disappointing, but understandable. We were just so honored to be considered for the segment in the first place!
Unfortunately, when the pre-recorded segment aired on the 29th, the TODAY show presented a Christmas tree being dressed up for New Year's Eve, complete with golden hat, and ornaments with hand-written resolutions tucked inside... Sound familiar? Well, it certainly did to us. That is precisely what our product does - dresses up the tree and lets families store wishes for the New Year inside our Wish Holder ornament. TODAY has had our product since July, called for more, cut it and then, sadly, presented a like idea to millions of viewers... unfortunate and very disheartening for us as a growing female-owned small business.
At least our product is TODAY Show material. And we have support from LOTS of young millennial families, including some in Hollywood, like Tori Spelling (see next post!!!)
We will press ahead and hope for fairer coverage from media going forward.
]]>We are so excited that REAL SIMPLE Magazine has featured us in their "What We Love" section this December! Get your kit before the ball drops this New Year's Eve!
Imagine our surprise when we opened REAL SIMPLE and found out we are #2 on their list in the December holiday issue for things they LOVE! Last year, we got a nod from Hollywood with Alyssa Milano posting us on Instagram to over 1 Million followers! And now THIS! Needless to say, we are thrilled to be featured and very thankful to REAL SIMPLE! Stay tuned. More surprises to come!
]]>
Oh! New Year's Tree had a great product launch this past December! We would like to thank all of the families who bought and used our kits for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day! We received wonderful feedback from parents and kids who loved dressing up their trees for New Year's Eve. And our Wish Holder ornament seemed to put the icing on the New Year as the last ornament hung on the tree, with their secret wishes for the New Year stored inside until next holiday season!
We were even noticed by Hollywood, with a totally unexpected, but wonderful, Instagram post from actress and mother of 2, Alyssa Milano! Special thanks to her for helping spread the word about the hottest NEW holiday classic for families!
We are now meeting with retailers to get our kits into more stores for 2017. We have 20 new customers already nationwide and are adding more each day. Send us an e-mail (under "contact us") if you are interested in stocking Oh! New Year's Tree on your shelves this coming December! We have great marketing and PR campaigns that will be building awareness heading into the latter half of 2017! Until then, Happy New Year's Tree!
]]>#1 Dress up your tree and make wishes upon the New Year!
If you plan to stay home for New Year's Eve like many Americans, then why not make your home more festive? Your Christmas tree is probably still up, so give it a quick, easy makeover! With an Oh! New Year's Tree kit, you can join characters Mack and Mae Holiday and give your tree a brand new look in just minutes. Then, have fun making wishes upon the New Year and storing them in the collectible Wish Holder ornament! Lasting memories for family and friends! Just wait until next holiday season when you re-discover the wishes and see if any of them came true.
#2 Dress up yourself as if you were going out and have a "mocktail" reception.
Kids get a kick out of any kind of party, so create some fun drinks and snacks and turn up the tunes! We used to do this when my kids were small and we were too tired to go out for the night. Kids and parents can stay in their slippers, but put dresses and ties on for the party! And then, make your own midnight - the earlier the better - so you can put the kiddos to bed. The two of you can gaze at your New Years tree and watch the ball drop at midnight in New York City! And maybe someday, you’ll even watch the Rockefeller tree get decked out for New Year’s Eve, too!
#3 Play games, but not just the usual ones.
Go for some old-fashioned fun with charades. Kids love to act things out, so give them some fun categories like movies, tv shows and sports. Watching the kids, and then the kids watching the parents act out the words is entertaining for all. After you’re done with charades, use a post-it to put the name of a famous person or character taped to each person’s back. Then, during the night, keep asking questions of the other guests to figure out which famous person you are!
#4 Spend the evening with friends and close family who also have kids.
The adults can catch up after a busy holiday season and the kids are happy to run around with cousins and other kids! Serve finger appetizers for the kids and pick up some easy frozen Trader Joe’s or Costco apps for adults. Keep it simple and set an early time to celebrate the New Year so that everyone can get home in time to put the kids to bed before a New Year’s Eve meltdown.
#5 Don’t want to host for the entire night?]]>
Suggest a block party and rotate with 3 or 4 other families. The kids will have fun moving from house to house for changes of scenery. And each house can break up the night with different courses - drinks and hats at the 1st house; appetizers, pizza and noisemakers at the 2nd house; dessert, New Year’s Tree and “midnight’ poppers at the final houses!
Now let's make some wishes upon the new year, for health and for happiness, kindness and cheer! Sure, adults sometimes like to make resolutions for the new year. Get organized, get in shape, get a new job, travel more. The list goes on. And while resolutions are useful in some regard, they are sometimes reluctantly made and then broken early in the new year.
Why not change things up a bit this year and make resolutions a bit more fun! And get the whole family involved. Kids usually don't make resolutions, but kids LOVE to make wishes. Now there needs to be some guidelines, of course. Since Santa just delivered many of the items on their Christmas lists, asking kids to wish for less material items is called for. So, they might have a goal in mind - say 'making the soccer team.' Have them put this on their wish list for the new year. Things they want to accomplish or places they would like to visit. Or just simple things they would like to do with their family - like 'take more family bike rides.'
Use Oh! New Year's Tree Wish Lists to record those wishes with family and close friends. Then fold them up and store them safely in the Wish Holder ornament. Keep your ornament in a place you can peek into during the year. Or if you'd rather, store them and re-rediscover those wishes next year when you decorate your tree again. See if any of the wishes came true. Or if you MADE them come true! If you did, maybe you just followed through on one of those resolutions after all!
]]>
Put down your devices and bring the family together with an unexpected activity for New Year’s Eve! Give your home one last holiday hurrah with Oh! New Year’s Tree. Your tree is probably still up - most of us are disappointed when it comes down - so why not give it one last chance to celebrate with you? Create memories for New Year’s Eve like never before with Oh! New Year’s Tree.
I have always wished there was more to New Year's Eve than just wearing hats, shaking noisemakers and waiting for that old crystal ball to drop in NYC. And while resolutions are a way to set goals for the new year, it is a difficult concept for kids to grasp. For my family, making wishes for the things we wanted to accomplish or the places we wanted to travel to was much more fun!
Storing the wishes on our dressed-up tree has instilled lasting memories in our kids. Oh! New Year's Tree is a new and easy way to keep the holiday spirit alive just a bit longer. A great activity if you are home for New Year's Eve with family and friends. Or bring a kit along to the party!