Spread Holiday Cheer…For Free!

It’s almost that time of year… Soon your mailbox will be overflowing with envelopes as family and friends send you their holiday greetings. Americans spend more than two billion dollars on holiday cards each year, and when you add in postage and the time spent addressing and labeling envelopes, it’s clear that there must be an easier way to share your end-of-the-year news.

We invite you to create a holiday card at xtra xtra. It’s paperless and eco-friendly, and like all of our other announcements, it’s also free of charge. You can write a nice long newsy letter informing everyone about your family’s achievements and celebrations, and attaching a photo makes it extra personal.

The best part of all is that it’s one-stop-shopping. Rather than write and address dozens of letters, you can create one single letter at xtra xtra and tag it to all of your favorite communities. Tag your posting to up to eight towns and four colleges or high schools, ensuring that all of your friends and family are on top of your news. Creating a holiday card is also a quick and simple way to enter the JetBlue giveaway contest that starts tomorrow!

Plan Your Dream Trip with xtra xtra

On Wednesday, we’ll be kicking off an exciting contest to give two lucky xtra xtra users a $300 gift card to JetBlue Airlines. From December 1 to December 20, you can enter the “From Your Town to Any Town” giveaway by creating milestones at xtra xtra. More details will be available here on the blog on December 1, but for now we invite you to think about where you’d go if you won! Visit JetBlue’s website to see where they fly!

As we’re hosting the contest, members of the xtra xtra team can’t win, but if we could, here’s where we’d go…

  • Stephanie Burke, xtra xtra’s Operations Manager– If I won the JetBlue gift card giveaway, I would definitely use it to visit friends: Portland (to visit Kimmy); New Orleans for Mardi Gras; or California. As it gets colder, I am also thinking about a tropical getaway. JetBlue flies direct to Aruba, and that is sounding pretty tempting right now!
  • Jamie Reddish, xtra xtra’s Graphic Designer–If I won the giveaway I would like to go to San Diego, California. I’ve never been to the West coast and I could really use some sun and beach time!!
  • Cooley Horner, xtra xtra’s Marketing Coordinator—I would fly down to Jacksonville so I could visit Amelia Island, one of my favorite vacation spots. Fried shrimp, boiled peanuts, and Florida sunshine would make a fantastic wintertime getaway!

Start brainstorming ideas for where you’d like to jet away to, and get excited for our giveaway that kicks off on December 1!

Til next time,

The xtra xtra team

  • Nov 29, 2010 by admin
  • Contests
  • 2 Comments

We’re Thankful For…

Happy Thanksgiving, xtra xtra friends! We hope you’re having a wonderful holiday with friends, family, football, and food!

We have a lot to be thankful for at xtra xtra. In only a few months, we’ve redesigned and relaunched our website, formed an exciting partnership with Boston.com, and hired some fantastic interns, and now we’re working hard to make the site the best that it can be. We’re thankful for all of these successes, but we’re especially grateful for your support and enthusiasm for xtra xtra. We couldn’t do it without you!

Here are a few of the other things we’re thankful for on this holiday…

  • Steph is thankful for… “Incredible friends and family, the abundance of laughs that come from said friends, living in Boston, Microsoft Paint, and Bravo TV”
  • Jamie is thankful for… “My amazing family, Dunkin Donuts coffee, my Mac <3, and online shopping (and my Job for funding the hobby!)”
  • Cooley is thankful for… “Friends and family, Mom’s squash casserole, my baby niece, and of course Glee and Community! :) ”

Happy Thanksgiving!
The xtra xtra Team

Welcome to Boston

We’ve used our “Community Focus” series to spotlight the neighborhoods and suburbs that make up the greater Boston culture, but today we decided it’s time to recognize the city of Boston as a whole. Founded in 1630 and regarded as the birthplace of the American Revolution, Boston features a myriad of historical landmarks and attractions. Tourists flock to the city to see the Swan Boats, the USS Constitution, and the birthplace of Paul Revere, but Boston is also home to more than 600,000 people. That’s certainly a lot of milestones!

Whether you’re a resident of the city or planning a visit to grab some chowder and check out the Bunker Hill monument, we invite you to take a look at some fantastic photos of Boston from the folks at Flickr.

Click here to see our favorites on Flickr!

You can also find the latest headlines from Boston by visiting xtra xtra‘s page for Beantown announcements.

Till next time,
CH

**Image Credit: WikiMedia Commons

Sweets for Soldiers

If you stopped by our office in October, you might have been tempted by some candy.

LOTS of candy.

In the spirit of Halloween, we packed our lunch bags with candy and distributed them at local events and activities. Thousands of Boston-area residents were able to participate in this “sweet” giveaway, and we ultimately handed out more than 50 pounds of candy!

Halloween is over now, but we still had some candy left in our office. Rather than become tempted to eat it all ourselves, we decided to donate it to Operation Gratitude, a fantastic non-profit organization that sends care packages to American troops abroad. Each box of food, hygiene products, and entertaining items is meant to show appreciation for all of their service and sacrifice. We’re excited to be working with this awesome organization; xtra xtra features announcements for military heroes, so we’re glad to support those who serve our country with bravery and honor.

We’ve packed up almost fifteen pounds of candy and sweets for the soldiers, and we’re about to head out to the post office. If you’d like to get involved with Operation Gratitude, take a look at their Wish List, or visit the site to find out how you can help support our heroes abroad.

Til next time,
CH

  • Nov 19, 2010 by cooley
  • xtra xtra
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I Spy…An xtra xtra Lunch Bag!

In case you haven’t heard, our team has been venturing out into local communities to spread the word about xtra xtra. We’re promoting our partnership with Boston.com by handing out reusable, eco-friendly lunch bags with our name and logo on them at businesses, events, and festivals in the area. It’s been a treat to introduce people to xtra xtra, and we’ve all enjoyed the opportunity to explore different towns and neighborhoods in and around Beantown.

We’ve distributed over 8,000 bags in the last two months, and we even noticed someone walking through Newton with one in hand the other day. The project has proven a bigsuccess in driving awareness and visibility for the company in Boston, and we’re excited to see more visitors coming to xtraxtra.com with each passing day.

So tell us… Have you spied an xtra xtra bag in your town yet? What kind of give-away items do you like receiving from companies? Is eco-friendly the way to go?

Keep your eyes peeled for xtra xtra in a community near you. If you happen to see one of us, stop by and say hello! We love hearing from our friends and followers!

Best,
CH

  • Nov 17, 2010 by cooley
  • xtra xtra
  • No Comments

The Benefits of Sharing

We have an easy five-step process for creating milestones, but today I’d like to focus in on one of those steps. The “Share” function at xtra xtra is one of our most valuable features, but it might also be one that often goes unsung. You have the power to connect your milestone to everyone that might care to learn more about your story, and that’s something worth celebrating.

Let’s say Susan and Jim are getting married. Susan is from Phoenix, Jim is from Boston, and they met at Northwestern University. If they never used xtra xtra, Susan and Jim would have to post their wedding announcement in two newspapers and report it to three schools (their respective high schools and the college where they met). This would ultimately produce headaches and add to the wedding budget, as many papers require a fee for publishing announcements, but it could all be easier with xtra xtra.

That unsung hero, the “Share” feature, allows Susan and Jim to share their news in one quick step. They could tag their wedding announcement to up to eight communities—plenty of room for Phoenix, Boston, and any other towns they’ve called home in the past—and they can link the post to four schools. Their high school classmates and college friends will be kept in the loop, and all without costing a cent!

Check out the milestone creation process at xtraxtra.com by sharing some of your own announcements. You can keep everyone connected, and sharing is easy with tagged posts, the Facebook “like” button, and our new Tweet tool!

Til next time,
CH

Commemorating Veterans Day

Today is Veterans Day, and it’s an opportunity to pause and thank the men and women who’ve given so much to our country. xtra xtra extends sincere gratitude to these brave soldiers and their families as we reflect on the heroism that helped make this country great.

Honor a veteran in your life today. Make a phone call, offer a hug, or send an email to thank them for their efforts and sacrifice. You can also create an xtra xtra military announcement to commemorate the contributions of a hero in your family.

Welcome to Danvers: Est. 1630

Danvers is cradled between Boston and the New Hampshire border, and it’s also home to a lot of milestones. Thousands of local residents call the town home, and that’s how it earned a slot in our Community Focus series. Visit Danvers to see the nation’s oldest fruit tree, landmarks from the Salem Witch Trials, and beautiful foliage in the rolling hills that make up the town’s geography.

Click here to see some of our favorite photos from Danvers.

You can find the latest news from Danvers by visiting its xtra xtra page. Share some milestones commemorating achievements in Danvers and see them in Your Town at Boston.com!

Till next time,
CH

Happy Anniversary, Steph!

Today’s milestone spotlight comes from the xtra xtra office. We’re offering a special “Happy anniversary” shout-out to our very own Stephanie Burke!

Steph is xtra xtra’s Operations Manager, and today marks her third year with xtraxtra.com. That’s certainly something to celebrate! She’s been with the company since the very beginning, transforming a simple idea into a national website, and her impact on the site is certainly hard to miss.

Steph struck a pose at the BlogHer '10 convention earlier this year, where she represented xtra xtra and mingled with bloggers from across the country!

We’re celebrating this professional milestone by taking her out to lunch and playing her favorite songs in the office. You can help us celebrate by honoring someone you know who’s celebrating a professional milestone. Whether a friend got a new job or you just scored a promotion, make it news at xtraxtra.com!

Best,
The xtra xtra team