At Mushroom FM, we've always been full of fun at the festive season. This year, we're keeping up much cherished Mushroom FM traditions, while at the same time freshening them up with a few twists. We have plenty to unveil over the next little while, but today we're proud to announce our 2015 holiday countdown.
Listeners who've been part of the Mushroom Crowd for a while will remember that we launched this countdown tradition in 2011. In 2012, we improved on it even further. And this year, it's a spectacular.
Once again, we're making a list, checking it twice, and presenting a 10-hour extravaganza of the top 100 holiday songs as determined by our listeners. And this time, we're holding a Mushroom FM Christmas party along with the event. If you're a long-time listener to the 'shroom, you'll know that no one parties online like we do. It's the first time since Mushroom FM's return that we've really had the chance to have a party and socialise together, just like we used to.
Santa will be in attendance, bringing a lot of Christmas cheer to a lucky Mushroom FM listener, with a USD $500 cash prize giveaway. But you have to be at the event to win, and the only way to be at the event is to be locked into Mushroom FM on countdown day. The longer you listen, the more chance you have of Santa giving you that prize
The holidays are hectic, so mark the date in your calendar now. Sunday 20th December 2015 - from 9 am Eastern, (that's 2 pm in the UK).
Starting today, you can head over to our holiday countdown page and cast votes for your top 10 holiday songs of all time. Be assured that absolutely every vote counts, as long as you vote before votes close at midnight Eastern time on Friday, 18 December. The choices you make will be entered into our database, and an algorithm will tabulate the data collected from all voters to arrive at the most popular 100 songs.
Sometimes, these countdowns make you feel put on the spot a bit, don't they? You have to choose 10 of your favourites, and your mind goes blank. We can help there. One cool innovation is that we've made it easier to vote this year than ever, thanks to an extensive list of holiday songs. You can choose from the list to help jog your memory, or if there's a song we haven't listed or you prefer to type your songs in manually, just write the songs you like into the edit boxes provided.
When you vote and provide us with a valid email address, you'll be sent an invitation to the Mushroom FM Christmas party, which takes place while we play the top 100 songs on Mushroom FM. You'll be assigned a seat at one of our Christmas tables at the party. Each of the tables is named after one of Santa's reindeer. Before the big day, we'll publish a seating chart, so you can see who you're sitting with. Maybe you might like to make a special effort to chat with your table-mates via social media.
The more sociable you are at the party, the greater the chance that Santa will pick your name to win the cash prize. Santa's elves will be watching the Mushroom FM Twitter hashtag and the email box of the fun guy on-air. If you share a fun anecdote, have something witty to say, or are just generally entering into the holiday spirit, you'll earn yourself a Christmas cracker. Each Christmas cracker represents an extra entry into the cash prize drawing. And one lucky table will walk away with bragging rights as the winning Christmas table of 2015.
At some point during the Christmas party, Santa will make the drawing for the USD $500 cash prize. You'll have to be at the party to win when the drawing is made. If your name is drawn, you'll have five minutes to contact us via the email address we specify, or via Twitter. If we don't hear from you after five minutes, Santa will choose someone else to win the prize.
The cash is yours to do with as you see fit. If it will make Christmas for you and the family, have a merry Christmas on us. If you can spare some, perhaps consider making a donation to a charity that helps people in need.
We're looking forward to providing 10 more hours of unforgettable entertainment right ahead of Christmas. So be sure to cast your vote, and tell all your friends to do the same. Then join us on the 20th for our Christmas party. It's our way of saying thanks for your support, and we're so glad to be here to spend Christmas with you once more.