The New Year's Eve ball drop in Times Square is one of the holiday's most cherished traditions, and this year might be its best one yet. Fiskars Living's Tom Brennan joins Cheddar to reveal what makes this year's Waterford New Year's Eve Ball so special. The master artisan explains the painstaking process of creating the iconic scene as the clock strikes midnight.
Brennan reveals why Waterford chose "Gift of Serenity" as this year's theme. He says it represents the spirit of balance and composure heading into the new year. The ball features 288 new crystals that make up the pattern representing the theme.
Finally, Brennan shows off some of the other ways that Waterford is celebrating the holidays. The crystal company is using the New Year's ball as inspiration for some new products including champagne flutes. He says it's a creative way to bring the spirit of the Times Square celebration into your own home.
The make-or-break holiday shopping season was off to a strong start as of Black Friday, according to early online data and interviews with several analysts and early online statistics. On Thanksgiving day alone, consumers nationwide spent $1.75 billion online ー a striking increase of nearly 30 percent over last year, according to data from Adobe Analytics. The latest numbers are an indication that what was once a day-long Black Friday event, that then extended into a long weekend capped by Cyber Monday, has morphed into something altogether different.
Sandwiched between the massive Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Small Business Saturday is a day for mom-and-pop shops to take a slice of holiday revenue from the retail giants. Walter Frye, a vice president at American Express, sat down with Cheddar to discuss how his company is working to raise awareness about the importance of shopping small. When a shopper spends one dollar at a small business, 67 percent of that dollar stays in the local community, he told Cheddar.
Amazon's decision to bring an HQ2 to Queens, N.Y., was met by considerable backlash. According to the director of the city's Riders Alliance, the frustration is largely about the subway's reliability ー or lack thereof. "We have enough space on our trains, but they're not reliable," Danny Pearlstein, policy and communications director of the Riders Alliance, told Cheddar Wednesday.
Airports nationwide are gearing up for one of the busiest holiday travel weekends on record. But thrifty procrastinators take heart: there may still be some workarounds to help save money on holiday travel this year.
Condé Nast's shift to digital continued this week with an announcement that Glamour, the 80-year-old women's fashion magazine, would cease monthly print publication after its January 2019 issue. It follows similar moves by Teen Vogue and Self, other female-focused brands in the Condé stable. The vaunted magazine publisher lost $120 million last year amid a consolidation of its print properties.
The Butterball Turkey Talk-Line has been answering the questions of stressed-out Thanksgiving hosts for decades, but this year it is turning to Amazon Alexa to modernize how it helps with turkey prep.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2018.
Home-builders were largely spared from the broader market sell-off early this week, but a mix of high home prices, rising mortgage rates, and low home-builder confidence are threatening the future of the housing market.
Gwenyth Paltrow's Goop brand is out with its annual holiday gift guide, with such practical ideas as 24 karat gold rolling papers and an entire Spanish village.
Dr. Karin Tamerius is the mind behind "Angry Uncle Bot," an interactive feature for the New York Times which simulates conversations between the user and their disagreeable relatives.
