My Epic Weekend In Pictures: Christmas Kick Off Party Fun!

This was definitely an Epic Weekend that I'll never forget! Over the weekend on Saturday at 1pm, we flipped our 102.3 WSUS radio station from The 80s To Now, to The Christmas Station! Yep. November 9th. I've been doing this for many years, so getting all tons of feedback from all sides of the aisle is nothing new to me. I know there are many out there who love it when we go all Christmas and can't get enough of it. I also know that there are many who prefer to wait until after Thanksgiving. I appreciate and totally understand how all of you feel. I'm always asked year round "Steve, why do radio stations start Christmas music in November?" Well, we do want to make people happy! There are many reasons for us bringing you Yule Tide Cheer. My simplest explanation is that radio is like many other businesses, whereas if it didn't work, we certainly wouldn't do it. By December, Christmas radio stations have their biggest audience all year. It's like a radio Super Bowl for ratings.

This was our 2nd time having our annual WSUS Christmas Kick Off Party at Industry Kitchen & Bar in Sparta. Their 7,000 square feet patio gives even our big crowd plenty of space! We had such an amazing time doing my radio show from there. My laptop worked much better than last year (when it didn't work at all,) so that made our event much easier and more enjoyable for me.

Shout out to my friend Ray Stocker and the kids from Merriam Avenue in Newton. He and the kids are amazing, they start practicing Christmas songs in the second week of SEPTEMBER! That's how dedicated these 9 year old kids are. Simply amazing. Shout out to Becky Pachella and the kids from Sussex Christian School. It takes so much hard work and practice for these kids to be ready doing a Christmas Concert on November 9th! These schools play a huge role in helping our Christmas Kick Off Party be the annual enormous success that it is.

Shout out to Frederick's Fuel and John Roberts for always support us and our party. I'm sure one of our listener friends is very excited to have won 100 gallons of free fuel from them!

Shout out to Cassie and John from OSCAR One Step Closer Animal Rescue! They brought several cute puppies to our event that made many people smile and laugh. Shout to Kent and several others who volunteered for Father John's Animal House Saturday bringing several cute adoptable puppies to our event. I really hope that some of those great pets were lucky enough to meet their brand new Furever Families on this beautiful Saturday afternoon. Come to think, this could have been a life changing day in a positive way for many folks.

Santa and Mrs. Claus are always fun and a huge hit! Hopefully I was able to convince them to bring me over from the Naughty to Nice list, despite Steve Andrews trying to convince them to keep me on the Naughty List! ANDREWS! UGH! LOL.

It was great seeing so many adorable families, and pets getting awesome pictures with Santa and Mrs. Claus.

Our first official Christmas song on the radio was Michael Buble's Christmas (Baby Please Come Home,) in case you're keeping score at home.

Saturday after our Christmas Kick Off Party I had a fantastic, juicy burger with work wife Shawn and Steve Andrews. We had a great time. After that I was in a total food coma. I spent Saturday night being basically a vegetable watching college football. When you're the Program Director of a radio station, flipping formats is like an additional part or full time job. With radio stations being on 24 / 7, there are many elements that happen every single hour everyday of the week that can go wrong. It takes a ton of logistics fun, planning, and attention to detail. Between working so hard on our format flip, and the Christmas Kick Off Party, I was wiped out by the rest of this weekend. Saturday night after watching college football, I started binge watching the show Schitt's Creek. I've never been one to binge shows, but a friend turned me onto this series and I'm absolutely hooked. I'll say it's similar to The Office, where the first episode or two you see might not make you laugh that much. It's one of those shows where the more you watch, the characters grow on you and become funnier. You can see more about it by clicking here. (I know with most shows I tend to be years late to the party.)

Sunday I did some grocery shopping. They just recently paved my neighborhood street over the past few days, so grocery shopping would've been a pretty big inconvenience for me. All good. I was happy getting some errands done. Then besties Christine and Chris (happy Veteran's Day to both of them by the way and thank you for your service, you and all of our other Veteran's,) reached out inviting me over for football Sunday Funday. They even let me watch my Patriots game where we were competitive, and beat the Chicago Bears! If the Patriots are at least competitive, I'm happy with that as we rebuild. Bestie Carrie came over and joined us too. Christine and Chris put on a clinic when hosting us for Football Sunday from massive charcuterie boards to making several Steve friendly apps like Pigs in Blankets! I'm so blessed to have my friends. We also engaged in several inside jokes that just cracked us up all day. At one point Carrie looked at me, laughed and said "Steve, you are cancelled. I love you, but you're cancelled!" LOL.

Overall we had a great weekend that I'll never forget. Merry Christmas! Thank you so much for taking the time to read my Epic Weekend In Pictures. Time to start planning next weekend!