Our featured fan is Jim Weisbeck, who was our November S.W.E.L.L. prize winner. Jim walked away with four movie tickets. He shares, "Thanks for the movie passes! I've included a few pictures. The first one is my son and I on a recent trip to Alaska, on top of a small mountain we climbed in Denali park. I am the one in blue. The next one is me blowing out the candles on my most recent birthday. Note the 7 candles. Unfortunately each one represents 10 years. Actually I think I am at least 10 years old, not 7." • Hometown... Originally Alden, NY. Then off to college at Cornell Univ, Ithaca, NY; …
Archives for December 2007
The 12 Days of Wishmas: Day 8
After dozens of phone calls to the North Pole I finally got connected with the right person to schedule a visit with Santa for our 12 Days of Christmas. It was so nice of him to take time out of his busy schedule to come by. After hearing that we are donating 5% of sales and collecting presents for Make-A-Wish, he was even more excited to help us out. Santa arrived this afternoon and was as jolly as ever. It was a lot of fun to see the excitement of the kids- young and old! He even magically brought "movie snow" with him... you know, the fluffy 3D kind. It was a magical afternoon, …
The 12 Days of Wishmas: Day 6
The snow and ice haven't frozen our fun this week. On the 5th Day of Wishmas our visitors left with smiles on their faces, sticky frosting fingers to lick and sweet candy houses to proudly display on their mantel. Day 6 also exercised the creativity muscles, but this time with some classic construction paper, scissors, Elmer's glue and glitter- making frosty the snowman. There's something very childlike about using simple materials to create something out of nothing. There are endless possibilities... do you go with the classic three circle stock design or mix it up a bit? Should you jazz …
Christmas Lessons
Two great Christmas movies, one important lesson... Childlike vs. Childish [tags]Elf, Christmas Vacation, Cousin Eddy, childlike, childish[/tags] …
The Kim & Jason Comic Strip Retires
Those astute longtime Kim & Jason fans out there probably have noticed that this year's strips have been familiar. That's what we in the biz like to call re-runs. I have spent the bulk of this year in sabbatical mode, trying to decide what direction to go with Kim & Jason. It all started last year at about this time. After six years, I was starting to get burned out with doing the daily strip. Meanwhile, our increasingly busy speaking schedule and growing online business began to really take up a lot of time. I decided to put the strip on hold and think things through. I have put …
The 12 Days of Wishmas: Day 4
We had a "snow emergency" in Madison today, which is a fancy way of saying we got pounded with about 6 inches of wet and heavy white stuff. Schools were closed and the traffic was slow... which made the traffic for our 12 Days festivities slow also. I certainly don't blame people for staying inside! By the way, is there anything better than the early morning discovery that school is closed? I had the chance to experience this again as an adult a handful of times, being a teacher. It was glorious! Today's super fun childlike event was "make your own ornament." If you want to give this a try, …
Shrimp, Snowflakes, and Silliness
When I was little every year for my birthday our family would end up at ShowBiz Pizza, "Where everyone can be a kid." There was never a truer statement. I remember waiting in the ski ball line behind many a grown-up. That place was an experience... the "gourmet" pizza, the dazzling animatronic performers singing their imaginary hearts out, and don't get me started on my favorite games (air hockey) and top notch prizes. It was heaven! I was reminded of our family tradition the other night when my best friend Jaimie and I ventured out to Ginza of Tokyo for her birthday dinner. Little did I …
The 12 Days of Wishmas: Day 2
We just completed Day 2 of our 12 Days of Wishmas. Today's fun activity was creating paper snowflakes. When's the last time you made one? Many of our customers admitted that it had been decades since their last endeavor creating paper precipitation. I kicked off the day by making one myself, as an example of this creative childhood craft. Little did I know just how uncreative my example would prove to be. Our visitors got pretty fancy, as you can see. I can't wait to hang them in our windows tomorrow. …
Our New Sign
Our sign is in. Woo hoo! …
12 Days of Wishmas Kicks Off
Yesterday was the kickoff for our 12 Days of Wishmas event. It was a blast. Jenna wrote up a little report on the day, including some photos. NBC also stopped by with a camera crew to chronicle the grand opening. Below I've added video clips of the different segments that aired at the 6 and 10 pm news. If you are anywhere near the Madison in the next few weeks, we hope you can stop by and join in the fun (and bring a gift for a Wish kid, too!) All the event info can be found here. …