With just days to go before the world rings in a new year — and new decade — Tom Brennan, master artisan with Fiskars, a division of Waterford, is hard at work to make sure the famed crystal ball in Times Square is ready to dazzle revelers at the stroke of midnight on January 1.
"This is the only moment in time that everybody pauses for just a moment," Brennan told Cheddar on Friday while standing next to the pièce de résistance. "We don't do this other times of the year."
A team of engineers is installing 192 new Waterford crystal triangles on the ball that features this year's unique design, which Waterford is calling "Gift of Goodwill," the latest in its "Greatest Gifts" series.
The new crystals will make up just a fraction of the 2,688 triangles on the ball, which measures 12 feet across and weighs nearly six tons.
The New Year's tradition has been going on in Times Square, the crossroads of the world, since 1904, and the first ball drop happened in 1907.
Brennan stresses that it's not just him, or the team on the ground in New York that pulls off this global feat. "It is a global togetherness," he said. Waterford has craftsmen working on the project in its factories in Ireland, plus the engineers and marketers.
"It's amazing to think that this small city in the southeast of Ireland with just 47,000 people are here on top of the world. We're going to have 1.2 billion people watching us in just a few days' time, so no pressure."
King Charles III will be taking a shorter ride to Westminster Abbey, trimming the procession route his mother took in 1953 as he aims for a more modest coronation that will include some modern touches.
Chef Danielle Sepsy, a finalist on the cooking competition show The Big Brunch and owner of The Hungry Gnome bakery in New York City, explains how her delivery customers are able to enjoy fresh-tasting cookies at home and how her big TV spot translated into more hiring.
Egg prices have skyrockets since last Easter, with prices more than doubling between February 2022 and February 2023. Now families are trying to balance their budgets with the Easter tradition of dyeing eggs.
Chef Danielle Sepsy, a finalist on the cooking competition show The Big Brunch and owner of The Hungry Gnome bakery in New York City, demonstrated how to manke her famous, ooey-gooey Bunny Track cookies.
On this episode of ChedHER: Soyini Chan Shue, CEO of City Safe Partners, explains her career journey from NYPD to CEO of a security company; Traci Wilk, Chief People Officer at The Learning Experience, explains the top skills and traits of a Chief People Officer - which is one of the fastest-growing job roles; Fonta Gilliam, CEO and Co-Founder of Wellthi, breaks down how she's creating a social app to help you reach your financial goals; Courtney Wiggins, Owner and Artisan at The Winsome Apothecary, is this week's Female Founder spotlight and breaks down how she's creating products that are good for the environment and your self care routine.
