When I learned that Punxsutawney Phil gave his “official” prediction of six more weeks of winter (whose idea was it anyway to listen to a ground hog?), I decided there just might be a fun way to survive the next few weeks and begin to think about the warm, sunny days of spring. My family and I decided to have a “Blizzard Bash.”

If you’ve noticed, right now every DQ store has a list of 25 Blizzard flavors from throughout the past 25 years to celebrate the 25th birthday of the world famous Blizzard Treat.  The goal of our family “Blizzard bash” is to try all 25 of the Blizzard flavors collectively by the start of spring—before the 21st of March.  Four members of my family still live in the same town, but my oldest daughter lives in Auburn, Ala., and the beauty of the “Bash” is that we can all still participate at our local DQ locations, even though we are miles apart.

Everyone has their all-time-favorite Blizzard flavor. For me, as I mentioned in a previous blog post, it’s Oreo®. Sometimes the Blizzard of the Month tempts me to try an exciting new flavor, but I always revert back to my favorite. The idea behind our Blizzard Bash, however, is to “think outside the cup,” and tip our taste buds upside-down.  The first week we each selected our favorite Blizzard flavor, of course, but from there, we had to select a new Blizzard flavor from each of the four flavor categories—Cookie Lovers, Candy Cravers, Fruit Fans and Chocoholics. 

As we each try the 25 flavors, we will rate them to develop a “favorites” list for our family. When we’re done, we’re going to take our list down to our local DQ stores in Virginia and Alabama and see if they will post them in their lobbies as “Smith’s Family Favorites.” Who knows, if you’ll join in, maybe we can have a national Blizzard Bash and turn every town across the nation, shall we say, upside-down!

I don’t know about you, but up here in Minnesota we were TOTALLY excited about the Super Bowl possibilities for our Vikings, only to have our hearts broken last week.  Still, the Super Bowl is a lot of fun and always an opportunity for a party.  At the minimum it is a game-and-commercial-watching-snack-fest!  Even those of us who aren’t football crazy can enjoy this game. If not, it’s always a great time to go shopping.  Do your part for the economy! The malls and department stores can be pretty quiet during games like this.

Now, the opening ceremonies for the Olympics on Friday, Feb. 12, may not be top-of-mind when considering reasons for parties.  But consider the following: the opening ceremonies for the Olympics become more and more spectacular with each Olympics, and more and more folks have fabulous HD-TVs.  I’ll bet the opening ceremonies will be absolutely spectacular in HD!  If you have an HD-TV, have a party, invite your friends!

I admit, Valentine’s Day can be tricky depending on the status of your current romance.  With a little creativity, however, it can be a fun time for anyone: there is the traditional quiet and romantic time with your sweetheart, a party with several couples could be a fun way to celebrate, and have you ever considered having a “Who Needs ‘Em Anyway” party?  Everyone loves chocolate and desserts… mmmmm!

With all this party planning you might need a hand with your snacks and treats.  Shameless plug, I know, and at the same time, your local DQ® stores and restaurants have yummy novelties — Dilly® Bars in a variety of flavors, Buster Bars®, StarKiss® Bars, DQ Sandwiches, and even no-sugar added bars for your guests who are really watching their figures.  Perhaps you and your guests would prefer a DQ Cake or a Blizzard® cake festively decorated for the occasion.  A decoration and dessert all in one!

As a child I remember, as many children do, dreaming of all of the things under the tree and counting the presents, shaking them and trying to figure out what was in each of them.  Even though it seemed like it took forever to come, Christmas was always over way too quickly and it wasn’t long before we slipped back into our normal, everyday routines of school and work.

Tonight as I put my two boys to bed, they asked me “Dad, what was your favorite present you ever got at Christmas?”  After thinking for a second or two, I smiled and told them it was a stuffed lion, “Larry Lion” to be exact.  He was made back in the late 1960s by Mattel and he could talk.  If you pulled his string, his mouth would move and could say things such as, “I’m king of the jungle” and “I’m a very, very, very brave lion.” Oh, and he would also roar.  I think I got Larry when I was around three years old and I remember how petrified I was of him at first because he seemed so real and that freaked me out. I quickly overcame my fear of Larry and we became best friends.  I know that my mom still has him tucked away somewhere in a closet and the last time I ran across him, he still talked. 

Telling my boys about “Larry Lion” made me smile and it brought back all of the wonderful Christmas memories of years ago.  Before this holiday season slips away, and the stress of trying to fit everything in before that magical day, please take a moment and share with us your all-time favorite gift or treasured memory “from Christmas’ long, long ago.”

We wish you and yours all the joys and memories this holiday season brings!

♦ Fold the card inside a cloth napkin (there are lots of instructions for fancy napkin folds available online) and tie it with a festive ribbon.

♦ Tuck the gift card inside the pocket of a new shirt, into a wallet, or a hide it in a pair of gloves or new socks. 

♦ Place the card like a photo inside a picture frame.

♦ Hide the card in a big box full of packing peanuts, or in multiple layers of bubble wrap to add bulk, before wrapping the whole thing in holiday paper.  Another variation on this one is to package the gift card in a small box and wrap it, then put that box inside a bigger box and wrap that one, repeating as many times as you have boxes, wrap and the motivation.

(Carolyn says her kids inevitably wrap at least one of the boxes entirely in duct tape.  We recommend using that suggestion only on gifts intended for people who have above-average manual dexterity, and/or highly developed senses of humor, in order to avoid having the duct-taped box hurled at your head.)

♦ Make your own envelope by unfolding a regular paper envelope and gluing it onto a piece of fabric, fancy paper or gift wrap.  Trim the excess from around the edges, then re-fold the envelope and glue it back together.  Once it’s dry, put the gift card inside and seal the envelope with a holiday sticker.

♦ When you purchase your gift card, ask for an empty paper take-out bag.  Wrap the gift card in tissue, place it inside the bag, fold the top of the bag over and tape it closed.  Or, ask for a DQ paper cup and lid, put the card inside the cup, add the lid and top it with a bow. 

♦ Or, re-use and re-wrap last year’s tie box, substituting the gift card for the tie.  Dad will be glad you did!

Many people may not know that a lot of DQ locations make their own cakes from start to finish.  The cake decorator begins with DQ vanilla and chocolate soft serve, and adds layers of cold fudge and cookie crunch, before finally “combing” the cake to give it a distinctive appearance. Next, they return the cake to a blast freezer to chill it below zero, before taking it out the next day to decorate.

Our DQ cake decorators take a great deal of pride in producing professional looking cakes. Sometimes the decorator uses pre-determined designs, but, many of our decorators are also talented enough to come up with their own designs to help make a unique cake for a special celebration. As they make, design and decorate a cake, they know that it is going to be an important part of a birthday, anniversary, graduation or holiday celebration.

The cake decorator knows that when a DQ customer displays a cake for their family and friends, it is important to them. The decorator wants the customer to feel the same pride in sharing it as they did in creating the cake. They recognize that celebrations bring families and friends together to share many special stories. And it is their desire, as the customer and their guests reminisce about the good times, that their design and the DQ cake they made especially for the occasion will be a part of those happy memories. This holiday season, if you’re looking for a special treat to take along to your holiday dinner, a DQ cake is sure to sweeten the day and add to the joy of the season.

Happy Holidays!!

DQ Tycoon came out last December, just in time for the holiday season. Having three young children, I decided to go ahead and show off the game to my kids and have them try it out. They absolutely loved making all the treats, and laughed at the customers getting angry while having to wait in line (sometimes I wondered if they intentionally moved slowly to fill an order). The game does get pretty exciting… I found myself wanting to take over the game from my kids so I could help them out. Yes, I know I’m the father who will end up doing the projects for his kids, but I was just as excited as they were to see what the next day or level in the game would bring. So of course in true parent fashion, after the kids went to bed I went back to the computer and started playing the game myself. If you want to try out the game, you can play for an hour free at the Gamefish Site you can also purchase the game through this site. 

Warning – you will become addicted!!!

We got there a little before 5 a.m., which is when the doors were to open, and saw a line of shoppers from the front of the store out to the street. No parking spaces anywhere.  By the time we got to the store the people in line had crushed inside already. I dropped my husband off at the door, while I went off to find a parking spot. My husband met me before I had made it halfway to the store.  Nothing was available, and he’d learned that people had begun lining up at 10 p.m. Thanksgiving night.  What?! We just laughed and went out for breakfast. 

I have terrific memories of shopping the day after Thanksgiving as a teen or later with my kids and my mother-in-law, who just loved the crazy crowds.  We’d always stop for an Orange Julius^® drink, a perfect pick-me-up after long morning of shopping madness.  Sometimes we’d find a bargain or two that was just right, but we never managed to finish our shopping.  I still like to go out, but now it’s later in the day, when the shops are a bit quieter and there are still deals to be had. 

What are your day-after-Thanksgiving plans?

Planning for this gigantic cake began back in March and nearly 30 people helped out in making this feat possible. For five hours the day before, volunteers worked in a -25 degree Celsius warehouse to make the cakes. When they were finished, the product was loaded into a freezer truck and transported to a park the next day. It even arrived with a police escort!

Once at the park, it took 30 minutes to reassemble and ice the cake. Then it took another 20 minutes to serve it to the more than 600 people who showed up on that rainy day. It was sliced into 3,500 pieces and all leftovers were donated to The Salvation Army and a homeless shelter. Now what are they going to come up with for next year?

Employees say O’Brien was really nice and friendly, and he even asked them if they wanted a group shot or individual shots. They opted for the group shot to ensure that they would get a photo with the celebrity in case the restaurant got busy.

After the photo op, O’Brien ordered a banana split—hold the pineapple—and hung out at the restaurant for half an hour before taking off with his crew in an unmarked van. They were believed to be on their way to shoot footage in nearby cornfields for a segment for O’Brien’s new gig as host of “The Tonight Show,” which he took over from Jay Leno on June 1. That segment ran during the first episode and featured O’Brien running from his old studio in New York City across America to his new studio in Los Angeles. While running, O’Brien stopped by the St. Louis Gateway Arch, which was where he had been filming before stopping in for a DQ treat. Edwardsville is about a 25 minute drive from the Arch.

Here are some other famous faces that have appeard in DQ locations over the years:

Actor Tom Cruise (center) became a regular customer at the Lexington, Va., DQ restaurant in 2004 when he was filming the Steven Spielberg movie “War of the Worlds.”

Former President Bill Clinton visited the Flemingsburg, Ky., DQ restaurant in March 2008. Nearly 400 people greeted him upon his arrival, and he gave autographs and shook hands with most of the people at the restaurant. He even tried his hand at making a DQ cone!

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates (center) actually rented out a Kirkland, Wash., DQ restaurant for 45 minutes in December 2007 to hold a mock business meeting that was being filmed for a documentary.

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And although David Letterman didn’t actually stop at a DQ restaurant, he asked Andy Pettitte if he was running a DQ while not playing with the Yankees when the World Series champ stopped by “The Late Show” with fellow teammates Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada.

In 1959, the first Dairy Queen restaurant in the Central American country of Panama opened to the public. This year marks the 50th anniversary of that store’s opening, and to date there are seven other DQ locations in Panama. The official celebration took place in March, but there are festivities and celebrations that will continue throughout the rest of the year.

To kick off the “50 Years Growing With You” campaign, a birthday party was held for DQ staff, special guests and the local media. Shortly after that, the general manager from the DQ store visited TV and radio stations to participate in morning talk shows, and on one radio program they developed “Dairy Queen Memories,” where people could call in to share their memories of growing up with the DQ brand. The event was so successful it prompted the launch of a Facebook page, and those who shared stories and photos were entered to win prizes like digital picture frames and cameras. And in September, they held a Customer Appreciation Day.

Panama, which is located between Colombia and Costa Rica, borders the Caribbean Sea and the North Pacific Ocean. It is slightly smaller than the size of South Carolina and has a population of more than 3 million people. The most popular menu items are Blizzard® Treats, chili dogs, shakes, Moolatte® beverages and banana splits. They also sell DQ Cakes, which were just introduced to the country last year.