With Christmas being so close, I’ve been thinking about where I should go to church this year. I always like to attend at least one religious service on Christmas Eve or Dec. 25 and take some time to focus on what’s important. The year is so busy in the North Pole that it’s nice to regroup after Santa’s work is done with some pretty songs, friends and candlelight. I’ll have to decide which service I’m going to and get started right away! Being only ten inches tall means it will take me a while to get there...

COLLIN COUNTY

First Baptist Church Allen, Allen – There are two options for attending a Christmas Eve service at FBC Allen’s Worship Center: 4 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. Music and a special message will be offered, but there is no childcare. Anyone is welcome. Click here for more information.

Legacy Presbyterian Church, Frisco – Bring the whole family to a candlelight service at the Chapel at Frisco’s Heritage Museum Center near the Frisco Square. The events kick off at 4:30 p.m. Click here for more information.

Prestonwood Baptist Church, Plano – All are invited to celebrate Christmas with hymns and a special message at Prestonwood’s Plano campus on Dec. 24. Services are at 1:30 p.m., 3 p.m., 4:30 p.m. and 6 p.m., and Prestonwood en Espanol will join the 6 p.m. service. Childcare for children 35 months and under is available. Click here for more information.

Prestonwood Baptist Church, Prosper – If you’re a little further north, you’re welcome to attend Prestonwood’s Prosper location for Christmas Eve observances at either 4:30 p.m. or 6 p.m. Click here for more information.

DALLAS COUNTY

Fellowship Dallas, Dallas – All are welcome to Fellowship Dallas’ “Behold Your King” Christmas Eve services at 4 p.m. at 6 p.m. Your little ones under five are eligible for childcare, but you’ll need to preregister at childcare@fellowshipdallas.org. Click here for more information.

First Baptist Dallas, Dallas – Guests are invited to take communion and worship in candlelight Christmas Eve at 5:30 p.m. in the campus’ Worship Center. Click here for more information.

First United Methodist Church, Duncanville – Check out the Christmas Eve services including communion and candlelight at FUMC-Duncanville. 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. are your two options for attending the community-wide services, and there is a children’s pageant at 5 p.m. called “Las Posadas,” too. Click here for more information.

Highland Park United Methodist Church, University Park – There are a number of services to choose from on Christmas Eve, including a family-oriented nativity service, traditional candle service, carols and communion and a contemporary service over at Munger Place Church (a church plant of HPUMC). Don’t forget to download the Wham City Lights app before going, and if you have to be out of town you can watch a few of the services online. Click here for more information.

Irving Bible Church, Irving – The day before Christmas, head over to Irving Bible for one of their afternoon services at 3:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. (they’re identical services). They’re offering childcare, but you need to preregister. Click here for more information.

St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church, Dallas – Mass services start at 4 p.m. on Christmas Eve and also go on at 6:45 p.m. and midnight, right after an 11 p.m. Lessons and Carols service. There is no confession time on Christmas Eve, but you can head to the church on Christmas Day for Mass instead. Click here for more information.

DENTON COUNTY

Denton Bible Church, Denton – Pastor Tommy Nelson along with the church’s choir and orchestra invite you to join them for their Christmas Eve service. Carolers are set to greet guests coming in. The service begins at 6 p.m. with pre-service music starting at 5:30 p.m. Click here for more information.

Fellowship United Methodist Church, Trophy Club – At the “Different Kind of Birthday” services offered here, a special Christmas Eve offering will be taken to help serve local charities. Come at 3 p.m., 5 p.m. or 7 p.m. to be a part of Fellowship UMC’s Christmas celebrations. Click here for more information.

Saint David’s Episcopal Church, Denton – For some traditional Anglican worship, head over to St. David’s at either 5 p.m. or 11 p.m. on Christmas Eve. A Children’s Pageant will be featured in the early service, and midnight mass will focus on worship and a message. Arrive 15 minutes before each service for a time of caroling. Click here for more information.

ELLIS COUNTY

Midlothian Bible Church, Midlothian – There’s only one service at the church Christmas Eve, and it’s at 5 p.m. Check it out if you live south of Dallas. Click here for more information.

Check out some other available services in the Best Southwest here.

ROCKWALL COUNTY

Lake Pointe Church, Rockwall – Christmas services start Monday, Dec. 23 at 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. and then continue on Christmas Eve at 2 p.m., 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. The church asks that you RSVP so they can plan accordingly, or you can watch the live stream online. Click here for more information. 

TARRANT COUNTY 

Countryside Bible Church, Southlake – Guests will be taking a special Christmas Eve Communion in two separate services at 4 p.m. and 5:15 p.m. Click here for more information.

First United Methodist Grapevine, Grapevine – Choose the worship service that best suits you and your family at one of FUMC-Grapevine’s two campuses. Christmas Eve services include “Kid-Friendly Worship” at 4 p.m. and two traditional candlelight worship services at 6:30 p.m. and 8 p.m., all at the Downtown campus sanctuary. And, there’s a bilingual service at 11 p.m. Over at the Heritage campus, guests are invited to a fellowship and carols service at 6 p.m. Click here for more information. 

Fellowship Church, Keller/Southlake – Celebrate Christmas Eve at one of Pastor Ed Young’s services at the 2525 Florence Road campus. 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. are the times for the Keller services. Click here for more information.

St. Joseph Catholic Church, Arlington – Make Christmas extra meaningful this year by honoring the nativity at one of St. Joseph’s services. The 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. services are in English and include the Children’s Pageant. At 11 p.m., a candlelight concert will be held, and at midnight there is a bilingual service. Click here for more information.

It’s the weekend, so I really hope all you readers aren’t expecting me to work. Instead, I’m having a little office party, complete with cocktails, “mocktails” and all the Doritos I can get my tiny little hands on!

Most of these recipes can be made without the “good stuff,” so if you’re looking for something a little more festive than apple cider to serve the kiddos, you’ve clicked the right article!

Rudolph’s Red-Nosed Punch

• 5 cups orange juice
• 2 cups chilled Sprite
• 1/2 cup cherry juice, cranberry juice or pomegranate juice
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 1 1/2 cups vodka (optional)

Garnishes: lemon or lime wedges

Preparation: Stir all ingredients together in a pitcher and serve over ice.

Christmas Spritzer

• 2 cups apple juice
• 2 cups cranberry juice
• ½ cup vodka (optional)
• 2 cans ginger ale

Preparation: Add all ingredients into blender EXCEPT ginger ale. Blend together and pour into pitcher. Add ginger ale and stir. Serve over ice.

Holiday Sangria

• 1 cup fresh tiny orange juice (I think “satusma” is the technical name, so use about 4 of those)
• 1 cup satsuma orange sections (about 2 satsumas)
• 1/3 cup Triple Sec (orange-flavored liqueur)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 2 whole cloves
• 1 lemon cut into wedges
• 1 lime cut into 8 wedges
• 1 bottle sweet red wine

Preparation: Combine ingredients in pitcher and stir to dissolve sugar. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight. Serve chilled.

Warm & Fuzzy Hot Toddy

• 2 teaspoons honey
• 1 ounce lemon juice
• 2 ounces whiskey
• 3 ounces hot water
• 5 whole cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 lemon wedge

Preparation: Combine whiskey and lemon juice in mug. Put cloves in lemon wedge then add to mug with cinnamon stick. Pour in hot water and stir in honey.

Remember, Santa wouldn’t get behind the reins of his sleigh after a strong Hot Toddy, so stay safe this holiday season and don’t drink and drive! 

P.S. To check out some of the other shenanigans I've been up to in the BubbleLife office, click here.

Mention underpants and everybody looks! If you want to “expose” your business to a ready-made, built-in audience that lives, works, plays and sends their kids to school close to your business, BubbleLife.com is the ticket.   

When you advertise on BubbleLife, you can show off your business with banner ads, which are similar to hoisting billboards up on a busy street. Instead of cruising by in your car to see the billboard (though, if everyone is texting and driving, they won’t see them anyways), your ads are showcased next to neighborhood news that over 150,000 people already trust.  

• On BubbleLife’s news websites, your ads will be working 24/7 because people check their news all the time.  

• Also, with the daily email newsletter, you get an ad that is emailed out every day!

This is way different than print papers and magazines. First of all, most print publications are distributed weekly or monthly, and BubbleLife is updated in “real time” (a fancy tech term for “all the time”). Also, with print papers and magazines, people give them the heave-ho—read and chunk. So, with that said, your ads will work for you around the clock on BubbleLife!  

Don’t believe me? BubbleLife.com sends a weekly report of how many times the ads are shown and if people are clicking through to your website. If you have a crummy ad, you can change it. With print stuff, you are toast—no changing it up.

Do something to start the new year off with a bang. Get out your wallet and visit http://store.bubblelife.com. You can pick one neighborhood or all 60, depending on how fat your wallet is. Just pick something you can afford, and be consistent.  

You can start today for $99 per month. Better reserve your spot because when I take over this place, the prices are going up.  

Now I have been eavesdropping around the office for a while now, and I’m a bit floored by what I heard the publisher tell a new bakery that called to advertise.

She told him to go set up a BubbleLife Connect account at www.bubblelife.com. You won’t believe what she said next. She told him that advertising doesn’t work until you set up the basic processes of marketing to get noticed by those you know, those you don’t know and by Google.

She said that by using BubbleLife Connect, he could write an article or announcement about his business and, with the click of a button, share it with Bubblelife readers, his personal Facebook account, his business Facebook, his Twitter account, his LinkedIn profile and his email list.

She explained to him that BubbleLife Connect gives him an online business listing—sort of like a mini website tucked under Bubblelife.com. She talked about some of the features and boy, was I getting overwhelmed. Here are the highlights:

• He only has to post once—with one password. Talk about a time saver!

• First, anything he posts—an article, announcement, promotion or calendar event—gets published to his directory page (think: business blog) so Google can find the posts and direct people to him.

• Secondly, he gets to pick where he wants to distribute (share) his news:

• BubbleLife—those he doesn’t know that are close to his business

• Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter—those he knows

• Email List—those he knows

She explained to him how to connect his social media from his BubbleLife Connect tools page (Settings>Setup>Link social and web accounts) and then told him to go ahead and set up reporting so he could monitor how well it was working (Settings>Setup>Setup social and web reports).

She even showed him how to import his emails in by looking on his tools page (Marketing>Email List>Import new members).

This guy was so happy that he could streamline his marketing that Saffie forgot to tell him about being able to schedule and automate his Facebook posts, tweets, LinkedIn posts and emails. She did remember to suggest that he get his customers to opt into SMS text coupons and showed him how to do that with BubbleLife Connect.  

Matt Cobb, who is the BubbleLife Connect guru, has been making training videos, and here is one that explains how to post an article to BubbleLife: How to Post a Story on BubbleLife

Saffie explained to the bakery guy that this would help him get some strong word-of-mouth marketing going because people could share his stuff. BubbleLife Connect is free and comes with 20 emails for email marketing. For $49 a month, you get 1,000 emails. If you need more, you can buy them for $10 per 1,000 emails.

As far as advertising, Saffie sent him to http://store.bubblelife.com and told him to look at the basic package that starts at $99 because he needs to consider advertising as branding to complement his content. Advertising is like placing billboards in the neighborhood, and he needs to do it consistently, so she told him to pick something he can afford instead of spending his whole advertising budget in a month.

After she got off the phone, she told the office peeps that traditional newspapers have failed local businesses by selling ads that don’t work and are too expensive for most businesses to do consistently. She says local businesses need a marketing process complemented with advertising that can be monitored for effectiveness. BubbleLIfe Connect can do that, even if they don’t buy BubbleLife advertising. It's local marketing tied up with a big red bow!

P.S. To check out some of the other spying shenanigans I've been up to in the BubbleLife office, click here.

I think I am starting to figure out how this all works. I’m getting BubbleLife News every day in my email, which beats the doorstep because I can read it whenever and wherever I want.  

Lo and behold, each community has a news website, too! And, BubbleLife has editions for 65 communities in the DFW area. What I discovered is that the news is updated all day long on the website and then, only the new articles from the last 24 hours go into the email newsletter. I’ve got to admit, it’s sort of a cool way to stay in-the-know. I totally need this in the North Pole.

From what I can tell, this really smart dude here named Jeff Farris (the leader of the pack) built the BubbleLife software on his own. It works like a news search engine that rounds up local articles. The editors highlight interesting people and stories while the neighbors and local merchants contribute the latest and best stuff.

Finding your local news is easy, but let me tell you how to share your news, no matter have big or small. You can be part of the news without burning down the house. Isn’t that a song? 

First things first—find your online newspaper:

• They are all listed on www.bubblelife.com.

• Or, you can type it like this: Southlake would be http://southlake.bubblelife.com or Plano would be http://plano.bubblelife.com.  

Bulletins:

This is apparently an all-new feature for BubbleLife. Now, hold on to your hats, because to me it looks like free classifieds. Looking to sell toys your kid has outgrown? Have a prayer request? Having a garage sale or need a babysitter? Want to share your band event, real estate listing, sale at your store, or share a flier about your dog (or elf!) that ran away? Think of it like this: it’s a bulletin board just for your neighborhood. Look for the green button on the front page of any BubbleLife website and tack up your news!  

Calendar:

Remember, calendar events are news, too. Look for the green button on the homepage and post your event there.

iReporter:

Here, anyone can be a neighborhood reporter and get published—even an elf! So, all you amateur journalists, food critics, bloggers, PTA peeps, communications peeps, PR agents or sports reporters, look for the green button on the right-hand side of the front page that says “Post an Article.”

1. Keep the article local to your community.

2. Keep it non-advertorial. Don’t let your post feel like a boring press release. Readers wants something interesting and love to read short articles about interesting people and what’s going on around town.

3. Write original content and use original photographs. You don’t have to be a professional at either one, but they don’t want any copy/paste plagiarism or photo-stealing— that will put you on Santa’s naughty list.

Sarah Griffith, the BubbleLife business editor, has the ultimate control and she keeps her eye on all of the submissions. If you want to get your news out, post it here. If approved, it hits the newspaper website and then the email newsletter.  

BubbleLife Connect:

With a BubbleLife Connect account, you, your organization or business gets a directory listing inside a neighborhood. Think: modern day yellow pages.

While most newspapers have been trying to figure out digital news, BubbleLife has been figuring out what local merchants and businesses really need. BubbleLife Connect is packed with promotional tools to help you market your business or organization.

In BubbleLife Connect, you can also post content like you would to iReporter, but there’s one big benefit. By posting through Connect, you have the ability to share your post further by distributing it to additional BubbleLife communities. Just be careful how you write it, because even articles posted through Connect have to make it through Sarah!

They won’t say it, but I will—it is local marketing in a box. You can get an account now if you want at www.bubblelife.com and get ready to kiss Constant Contact and HootSuite goodbye!

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post. I am going to wrap my head around BubbleLife Connect and tell you more then!

P.S. To check out some of the other spying shenanigans I've been up to in the BubbleLife office, click here.