A Mommy Story

One of the things I love about blogging and social media is the ability to have a direct line to the people who can help you out.

For example, Cordy and Mira love My Little Pony.

Wait…I don’t think that’s quite strong enough.

What I meant to say was: Cordy and Mira LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! My Little Pony. They can’t get enough of the new show on the Hub network, and our house is now filled with ponies and accessories. It’s nearly the only TV they watch.

Each year we let the girls pick a new ornament to add to the Christmas tree. It’s fun to see how their interests change each year by looking back at the ornaments they choose. So of course when it came time to select this year’s ornament (and knowing that this is the year of My Little Pony for both kids), I did a little internet searching and discovered that American Greetings made a 2011 My Little Pony Pinkie Pie Christmas ornament.

Perfect!

One problem, though. The ornament was sold out everywhere. It seems My Little Pony has an enormous adult fan following, and once word got out about the ornaments, they were quickly bought up. Sold out online. Sold out in our local stores, too.

I looked at resellers to buy one, but I refused to get into a bidding war on eBay and spend $30+ on a $7.99 ornament. I didn’t want to reward someone for buying up all the ornaments to turn a profit with the collector crowd.

So I did what any desperate blogger might think to do – I reached out via Twitter, asking American Greetings for their help in tracking down an ornament. I explained that my two daughters are fans of the show and really wanted this ornament for our Christmas tree this year.

I was hoping they might be able to tell me if there was somewhere online to buy one, or if they planned to send out another shipment soon. I was happy to pay for one, I just needed an actual ornament to buy. They quickly responded that they would look into it for me.

I waited for days and didn’t hear anything further. I wasn’t sure how much they could help – if it’s sold out, it’s sold out, right? So I was completely unprepared for them to go above and beyond and respond with this:

And then yesterday, a perfect Pinkie Pie ornament showed up in the mail. Two little girls cheered with joy and Cordy declared the @amgreetings Twitter maven “the nicest person in the world!”

So now Pinkie Pie has joined the cast of animated characters on our tree. As befitting her importance at this moment, she’s front and center:

Have I mentioned social media is awesome? Thank you, American Greetings, for helping this mom get the perfect 2011 ornament for my daughters!

(And just because this is the new era of full disclosure: yes, American Greetings did send it to us for free, unexpectedly. There was no agreed on review or anything like that – I just wanted to share my joy at a company doing something really, really nice for my family.)