Merry Greetings!

In this issue:
-- Hunting Ornaments
-- Fun & Games on the Radio
-- Why Christmas Unplugged
-- Happy Birthday, Clausnet
-- Launching Santa's Sleigh
-- Getting Spooky
-- Waging War on Christmas
-- Links 'o Christmas
-- Hot Topics on the Merry Forums
-- Time for Christmas Movies
-- Projects, Projects, Projects
-- Merry Mail

The Merry News is brought to you by:

Hunting Ornaments

On our recent vacation we cruised to Canada and New England. Part of our fun was shopping as many Christmas shops as I could find along the way. Why? Because I wanted to find the perfect ornament for this year's ornament exchange.

Haven't joined in yet? Take a look and consider signing up. But do it quickly, the deadline is September 30th.

The ornament exchange is simply that -- you trade ornaments with another member of the Merry Forums. In sending out an ornament we ask that you put some thought into it. It can be home made or it can in some way reflect your part of the world. It can reflect a hobby or some other identifying part of who you are. It could be associated with a trip you took this year (the ornament we settled on has a lighthouse on it).

It is all in fun, of course. We're going to have a little photo contest to go with it so that everyone on the forums can share in the fun of this year's exchange.

Fun & Games on the Radio

The biggest highlight on our trip was the chance I finally got to meet JayIsh, esteemed long-time family member on the Merry Forums and The World's Finest Programming Director of Christmas Radio (hard to fit all that on a business card, Jay!)

Jay started playing some trivia games on the MCR forum area of the Merry Forums -- stop on by, you could win a free CD! I asked Jay for an update of MCR to share with you via the newsletter. Here is what he says:

Merry Christmas Radio continues to expand it's playlist attempting to offer something for everyone.

Kevin Dunn, RadioJonD and JayIsh will each be attempting to offer one new show a week with special guest DJ's along the way, the first of which is an old friend currently working at National Public Radio. But we don't want to tip our cards just yet...So stay tuned!!!

There are also some very special celebrity interviews on the horizon!!!

A special thanks to our loyal friends for supporting us and listening regularly! We REALLY appreciate it!!!

The MerryChristmasRadio team.

Thanks, guys! Of course, we're proud to shamelessly plug the best Christmas radio station online -- it is fun and it's free -- click here to hear it!

Why Christmas Unplugged

Our good friend James, creator of Why Christmas? -- one of the consistently BEST Christmas sites out there -- has really been burning the midnight oil adding new features and content to Why Christmas. You gotta see it!

The site has had a bit of a refresh with a bit more modern look and some pages (like the Christmas Recipes) are now easier to get to.

There’s an improved ’share this’ function on all the pages and the five latest blog posts are now listed on the home page.

Why Christmas is even offering itself to mobile users -- how cool is that? I've got it on my Blackberry now so when I need a fix (even by the neon glow of Vegas) I can get it on the go!

Happy Birthday, Clausnet!

Hard to believe it has already been a year! SC's ClausNet has grown to more than 350 active members, most of whom work as Santa Claus as least seasonally.

The site is celebrating their 1st anniversary with a brand new home page. The site is visual sugar plums for every Christmas purist to enjoy. And while the site does provide a lot of Santa-only material it is open for general membership. It is an outstanding resource for studying the life, history and portrayal of Santa and could well be one of the most comprehensive and feature packed Christmas sites online.

Stop by and wish SC and the merry group at Clausnet a Happy Birthday!

Launching Santa's Sleigh

Our most highly anticipated project of the season is just about ready to launch -- Santa's Sleigh.org.

Santa's Sleigh is a combined effort of the webmasters of the Merry Network. Our goal is to raise $1000 non-profit dollars over the coming months that we can give to a family in need this holiday season.

With gas prices, election-year negativity, a poor economy, a reeling Wall Street and an uncertain job market we frankly haven't seen a tougher Christmas season since 2001. We were simply flooded that year with requests for help. This year, we're going to help.

Using the resources of the community of professional Santas at Clausnet we will find a genuine family to help. We will be asking for cash donations and keeping the overall community informed of our progress in the weeks ahead via the various forums on the network. We've already had one very generous, anonymous donation!

Check out the site and give us your feedback. We're having a Merry Christmas this year because we're going to do some giving!

Getting Spooky

Ok -- since we're talking new sites let me let the black cat out of the bag and announce our little foray into Halloween. As a sister site to Real Christmas, we're pleased to announce Real Halloween. (Yeah, we're wildly creative at times...)

Like RC, this new site is a blog and it is intended to be a showcase of how real folks from our community celebrate the great day of Halloween. We're building and adding resources daily. As new features are added they automatically get fed into the Merry Forums.

And, for what it is worth, we're looking for a few good bloggers to share their Halloween plans with us this year. Drop me a line if you're interested.

Waging War on Christmas

One of the signs of the economic times will be an expanded "War on Christmas" this year. Of course, there really isn't a "war" on Christmas. It is more like an occasional skirmish.

The media tends to drive a lot of the hype. We believe that with the election over early in November we're going to see an assault reported on Christmas like never before.

Why?

Money. As cities and schools especially grapple with tighter budgets they will be forced to cut back on things most associated with Christmas in the community -- namely decorations, lights and Christmas programs.

We routinely report and attempt to sort out the real from the not-so-real at Defend Christmas.com. We hope you're all ready for this year's drama.

Links 'o Christmas

Have you visited Link Christmas.com lately?

Link Christmas is our own organically grown Christmas directory. (Yes, no pesticides have been used in the production of this website -- har, har).

"Organically grown" means that it is a spontaneous, user-driven project on the Internet. It is Christmas and only Christmas to be found in our directory. In fact, the links there are placed there by the webmasters who create the sites we link to. We believe we're building the most comprehensive Christmas resource online and we're celebrating year #2 with this season.

Stop on by and add your favorite Christmas link...or find one you haven't seen before.

Hot Topics on the Merry Forums

We are averaging about 10 new signups a day on the Merry Forums, making our "Introductions" area likely one of the hot spots on the site. It has me thinking -- perhaps those of us oldsters should stop by and introduce ourselves all over again. Or, we could just engage in these threads:

Football Family Fun

Eeeek! Only 100 days!

How Facebook Ruined Christmas

Time for Christmas Movies

So there we were cruising the high seas of the North Atlantic and I had my laptop out and my headphones on -- watching "Christmas Vacation" for the billionth time. My wife could only roll her eyes at me.

Do you do that -- watch Christmas movies when it is not quite yet Christmas?

What do you think will be the Christmas classic of 2008? Last year, for my money, it had to be The Nativity Story. Ok, technically that was a 2006 release but it came out on DVD last Christmas and I ran to it after suffering through the pathetic "Fred Claus" that was touted so highly last year.

BEWARE: Vince Vaughn has another Christmas movie coming out this year, too.

Alas, I digress. Check out everything dvdguy says on the Merry Forums -- he's on top of all the latest and the greatest with new releases both in theaters and on DVD.

And don't forget to check out the great resources at Christmas Flick.com either. One way or the other, we'll keep you up on Christmas movies.

Oh, one other thing -- if you're looking for quick clips of Christmas movie scenes, commercials, cartoons, music videos and the like be sure to keep an eye on our growing collection on the Merry Forums Video page -- it is the largest Christmas-only collection of videos online!

Projects, Projects, Projects

I know the frost is just about on the pumpkin but we're going ahead with a couple of major overhauls in the next couple of weeks.

Christmas Talk.com was moved to a faster server a few weeks back and we took the template for the site into the shop and added lots of new features. We should be back to our regular look in the coming weeks. We're in business, just need to tweak things a bit more.

Talk Christmas.com is way overdue and way overbudget on it's overhaul...but wait til you see it. We think we'll have that ready by the 1st of October, so pardon our dust while we totally revamp that merry forum.

We're also working on two new venues -- a Santa quiz site and a site devoted entirely to mistletoe. Pucker up!

Merry Mail

We've been so excited about the Ornament Exchange we've almost entirely forgotten about the Card Exchange. We're taking names for that list through the end of October and we always see a rush of additions at the end. Truth be told, the card exchange is always bigger than the ornament exchange. I can't tell you the fun I've had in selecting this year's cards...

The Shortest Season...

...is the one upon us now. At home, I've been engaged in the annual debate with the kids about which is better: Christmas, or getting ready for Christmas. That's where we're at right now: getting ready for Christmas.

My little girls -- ages 6 and 8 -- swear that Christmas is it. They are, as they should be, entirely devoted to Santa. But my 16 year old -- cynical teen that she isn't -- has suddenly declared a desire to bake with her mother. Be still my beating heart! She finally gets it...the real fun in Christmas is what leads up to it.

Last week, while I was out of town, my wife bought this year's fall candles and made the first batch of corn chowder, always a sign of the pre-season. It was a welcome thing to come home to. I'm spending more and more time in the sunny, seasonless wilds of Southern California. Imagine my surprise to feel that nip in the air and just a tinge of color on the Wasatch when I got home. But the time I put together another newsletter we could be carving pumpkins!

-- All the best,
Jeff