With Thanksgiving right around the corner followed closely by the winter holiday season, everyone is gearing up for family visits, feasting, and cold-weather merriment. Similarly, many Linqia programs launching in the next weeks will honor the holidays as well, so we’ve put together a guide to help you create amazing stories for your holiday programs! Whether it’s Thanksgiving meal prep or winter holiday festivities with the family, these five tips will help you create a meaningful and memorable holiday story that your audience will love.
1. Open up with a personal holiday story
Give your audience an intimate look into your life by telling a story that has personal significance to you. During the holidays, this often means sharing a family tradition that you do every year. Stories like this remind your audience why their own traditions are so special and can even inspire them to start creating new holiday traditions of their own! Anna of A Lily Love Affair shared her tree decorating tradition for her Wente Wines program.
“A few years back, Shawn and I started the tradition of buying an ornament on each vacation we have ever taken. For the last 3-4 years, we have now collected a dozen or so ornaments from the various places we have been. This tradition allows us to relive all of the amazing memories we created on each vacation and allow us to celebrate all the incredible places we’ve been able to travel together.”
2. A picture is worth 1000 words
A holiday story needs beautiful photos to make it shine. Draw your audience in with bright, clear photos that help tell your seasonal story and embody the merriment of this time of year. Mandy of Waiting on Martha shot a wonderful photo for her Thymes Candle program with Linqia that captured all aspects of the cozy and wintery holiday season. Her photo features the Thymes Frasier Fir candle snuggled up in a faux fur blanket alongside an open recipe book featuring a festive cocktail. All these elements come together so seamlessly that you can almost smell the alpine scent through the photo.
3. Make their mouths water
Great food is what many of us live for during the holidays, and it never fails to bring our friends and families together and put a smile on everyone’s face. Inspire your audience with delicious recipes that they can share with their own families. Aim for innovative and show-stopping desserts such as Kristianne of My San Francisco Kitchen’s Peanut Butter Pine Cone cookies she created for the Skippy’s Holiday program.
“I love peanut butter cookies. This holiday season I wanted to put a spin on a classic peanut butter cookie recipe from my favorite peanut butter brand to bake peanut butter cookies with, SKIPPY®! …These snowy pine cone cookies are a beautiful addition to the holiday dessert table, and you can even use them as a center piece.”
4. Family is forever
With the stress of holiday entertaining and traveling near and far, we sometimes lose sight of what we are driving ourselves crazy for: our families! Without the laughter and joy of seeing familiar faces of loved ones, no amount of pumpkin pie or hot toddy’s could make this time of year as special. In the same vein as telling a personal story, it helps engage your audience to talk about the time you spend with family and the special place they hold in all your seasonal events. Chelsea of Sunny with a Chance of Sprinkles talks about how amazing it is seeing her young daughter react to the holiday season during the Skippy Holiday program.
“Christmas has always been an exciting time for me, but ever since Alea came around, it’s been about ten times more exciting. I love seeing the magic of the holidays through her eyes. I love seeing her belief in the magic of the season and her love of Santa Claus, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, her Elf on the Shelf, Coal, and everything in between.”
5. Share tips for increasing merriment and decreasing stress
The holiday season can be overwhelming, but it is also a great opportunity to put your best foot forward and be a shining light through all the chaos. All it takes is a little preparation and determination. Through the years we’ve all learned our own tricks for staying organized during the holidays, and now is the perfect time to share your own tips with your audience! Jessica of Kozy & Co shared her genius tips for her Wente Wines program, creating a one pot pasta recipe that requires minimal cleanup as well as setting up a self-serve wine station so her guests could easily pour themselves wine while she cooked.
“No one wants to be stuck in the kitchen slaving over a hot stove or cleaning up for hours on end when you have guests, so pour yourself a glass of wine, get this dish started, and allow it to simmer while you mingle and enjoy your company.”
