Christmas at Bundle HQ
Maybe you’re not in the holiday spirit yet, but over here at Bundle Headquarters we have been in Christmas mode since we partnered with Hallmark Channel to make the Countdown to Christmas Bundle. You may have seen me and Cassie donning our ugly Christmas sweaters or the huge sparkly bow that we share. (Pictured below for reference). Cassie bought that Christmas bow two years ago and it was the best $12 she’s ever spent. We’ve been pretty good about sharing the bow so far, but we are looking to add another one to our collection. This glorious bow could warrant a fight that rivals the 2001 drama of “whose turn it was to play” Oregon Trail.
We have had a great time being in the Christmas spirit and promoting the Hallmark Channel Countdown to Christmas Bundle. We are looking for fun ways to spread the word, so all of your suggestions are welcome! Here’s a little behind the scenes of what have done so far…
Facebook Live Event
This was an adventure. I’ve watched many Facebook Live events and they seemed fairly straightforward to set up. (Just go onto your account and click “Go Live”- I can do that!) I had even done a Facebook Live event before for The Bubbly Sesh podcast, but Hallmark Channel’s social team was taking care of all the logistical aspects, so all I had to do was talk. (Which is considerably easier for me than any logistical aspects.) Cassie and I put on our sweaters, I threw on some red lipstick, she wore the bow (lucky!) and we clicked “Go Live” thinking it would just be that easy.
Once we were “Live” on my Facebook account, we realized that it was not live streaming to the Hallmark Channel fan group, so I logged onto my phone thinking we could Go Live on both accounts at the same time. Which would have been fine except for the fact that the way I positioned my cell phone left Cassie entirely out of the frame. (Which I promise wasn’t intentional because I was jealous about her getting to wear the bow this time.) When one of the viewers pointed this out, I adjusted the screen accordingly, so that everyone could see Cassie…except something happened where we completely lost sound capabilities. The patient members of the fan group shepherded us through the process, explaining how to adjust the phone to make the sound quality better and being patient as we stumbled through our first Facebook Live. One of my favorite descriptions of the event was from a fellow super fan who said that it was like “the first pancake on the griddle.” We tried another Facebook Live with the fan group after our first attempt and it was a lot smoother with all of the suggestions that we received from the Hallmark Channel fan community. Better pancakes, here we come!
Hallstar Alert
Ashley Williams has been one of my favorite actresses for quite awhile. I loved her as Victoria (cupcake girl!) on How I Met Your Mother, on the Jim Gaffigan show, and of course, in all of the Hallmark Channel movies. (So many good ones, but Christmas in Evergreen is pure magic!) Ashley is a fellow New Yorker and we were lucky enough to interview her on The Bubbly Sesh podcast a few months ago. I fangirled a little bit (okay, maybe a lot); she is just as charming and fun in person. Ashley loves games and Hallmark Channel so she offered to tell people about the Countdown to Christmas Bundle. She did a hilarious instastory where she explained the game, acted out one of the cards (which was about her!) and got her followers excited about Countdown to Christmas. One of my favorite parts about this entire experience was the fact that she did all of this while putting the big mouth Instagram filter on her face (if you don’t know what this is, please check it out immediately) and I couldn’t stop laughing the entire time.
CEOs and Christmas Sweaters
There’s going to be a story coming out about Hallmark Channel’s Countdown to Christmas Bundle soon (we can tell you more about it when it hits the presses, but for right now we don’t want to scoop our own scoop). For the story the writer wanted a picture of us playing Bundle with Crown Media CEO Bill Abbott. Bill Abbott is a very knowledgeable, kind, and approachable CEO, but I was still a little bit nervous to ask the leader of a huge network to wear an ugly Christmas sweater and play a board game with me and Cassie. Luckily, when we asked Bill if he was game (pun intended), he immediately agreed. Cassie and I had such a fun time at the photo shoot. We all wore our favorite ugly sweaters (Bill is a huge animal fan so his had a dog with a Santa hat on it) and played Hallmark Channel Countdown to Christmas Bundle. I sometimes feel awkward at photo shoots, especially when I have to pretend to be “candid,” but we were so involved in the game playing that we barely noticed the photographer was taking pictures! (I am probably making crazy laughing faces in most of them.) The story will be running very soon and we will make sure to share it with you when it comes out!
Cassie and I are so thrilled about this partnership with Hallmark Channel because they love to make people happy as much as we do. The 10th anniversary of Countdown to Christmas is going to be epic - with 24 new movies coming out, we are going to be celebrating from October 25th all the way through the new year. If you want to order Bundle: Hallmark Channel Countdown to Christmas Edition, click here. If you pre-order your game by October 1, you will have your game in time for the Countdown to Christmas kick-off on October 25th. Get ready for the watch parties, play parties, and Facebook Live events. (We promise you that we are getting the hang of it!)