Palm Beach New Year's Eve Hot Spots

NEW YEAR'S EVE HOT SPOTS

Looking for the perfect place to celebrate the New Year? Here is a short list of some of the go-to places for midnight revelries and Champagne toasts.

Celebrate the New Year in style at The Breakers’ elegant Fantasy Ball 2012. The belle of Palm Beach’s New Year’s festivities, the black-tie (the only way to ring in 2012) gala transforms the Ponce de Leon Ballroom for an evening of dancing, dining and merrymaking.

   From 7:30 – 9p.m., the Fantasy Ball reception welcomes guests with sips and bites. The party gets going at 9 p.m., with a four-course dinner, drinks, music from Powerhouse and live entertainment from Zanadu. The Champagne will flow at midnight, toasting the beginning of 2012, while a breakfast buffet (12:30 a.m.) will help stem the bubbly-induced hangovers. Tickets cost $330 per person for hotel guests and club members ($375 for visitors). 1 S. County Rd., Palm Beach, 888-273-2537

Enjoy the finer things in life as you welcome the New Year at The Colony Hotel with three parties scheduled on December 31.

   The Polo Steakhouse & Seafood party ($150 per person) kicks off at 8:30 p.m. with an hour-long cocktail reception, followed by a four-course meal, music and dancing led by DJ Kenny Mondo, a Champagne toast at the stroke of midnight, and a breakfast buffet.

   The Royal Room Cabaret welcomes 2012 with fine dining and a bit of musical flair. The evening begins at 7:30 p.m. with cocktail hour, four-course meal, and a cabaret performance by Mary Wilson. After the show, enjoy music and dancing with DJ Kenny Mondo, Champagne toast and the breakfast buffet. Tickets cost $350 per person.

   For a black tie affair, head to The Colony’s Pavilion and celebrate with the Michael Rose Orchestra. Starting at 8 p.m., guests will enjoy cocktail hour with open bar, four-course meal, and dancing to the Michael Rose Orchestra. Ring in 2012 with the Champagne toast at midnight and enjoy the hearty breakfast buffet. Tickets cost $200 per person.155 Hammon Ave., Palm Beach, 561-655-5430

The South Florida Science Museum is celebrating New Year’s Eve a night early. The popular Friday Nights at the Museum takes on a decidedly celebratory twist December 30 the whole family can enjoy. Children of all ages will enjoy ‘bubbly’ beverages, make pretzel wands to wish for a Happy New Year, create New Year themed arts and crafts, peer in on Jupiter and the Milky Way’s New Year’s celebrations in the observatory, even learn a little frog anatomy with a frog dissection. The child-friendly event starts at 6 p.m. and runs till 10 p.m. and is free with museum admission. 4801 Dreher Trail N., West Palm Beach, 561-832-1988

 Palm Beach County’sonly 'First Night' celebration, downtown Delray Beach’s New Year’s party is like none other. The family-friendly event stretches from the Tennis Center all the way to East Seventh Avenue, with activities dotting Atlantic Avenue along the way. Children activities like the bubble emporium, climbing wall, skate park, toddler play area, gaming tent, and the 100-Foot Christmas Tree and skating rink give the festival a carnival-like atmosphere, while area restaurants and bars offer adults a chance to unwind on their own. The People’s Procession is an all-access parade, where revelers are encouraged to join in as the procession makes its way from Veterans Park to Old School Square at 6 p.m. The evening will have live entertainment from local bands and DJs, fireworks, a giant puppet display, fireworks and two finales, one at 9 p.m. for the kiddies, another at midnight for the older folks, with ping pong ball drops. Tickets: $15 each, Downtown Delray Beach

Play in the snow as 2012 rolls around. CityPlace has an evening the whole family can enjoy. With scheduled snowfalls set for every hour starting at 6:30 p.m., ice skating and the holiday train running until 10 p.m., and the Raquel Williams band playing the Plaza stage from 9 p.m-12:30 a.m., kids and adults alike will be partying it up.

   Not to be outdone, the venues in CityPlace will have their doors open to ring in the New Year with a little holiday cheer:

• B.B. King’s Blues Club will have a live performance by the B.B. King All Star Band. Tickets are limited in quantity, with New Year’s Eve specials, including reserved seating ($100 at the door, $80 in advance), which includes a three-course meal, Champagne toast and party favors, and general admission ($60 at the door, $40 in advance) which includes Champagne toast and limited seating. 561-420-8600
• Improv Comedy Club will have a special performance by comedy’s most prolific big man, Ralphie May at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. 561-833-1812
• Taverna Opa will celebrate 2012 Greek style, with a three-course meal, belly dancing, DJ and open bar all night ($100 per person). 561-820-0002
• Carlos ’n Charlies is hosting a Mexican fiesta to ring in 2012. At $95 per person, revelers will enjoy hors d’oeuvres, prix-fixe dinner and open bar, as well as live entertainment. 561-346-4081

Come celebrate the New Year’s Eve in downtown West Palm Beach for the Clematis Countdown as restaurants and bars open their doors for an evening of revelry. The celebration will include a 20-minute fireworks display at midnight, visible from Clematis Street and the downtown West Palm Beach waterfront. Here are a few hot spots to check out as downtown celebrates into the wee hours:

• Gratify will host a New Year’s Eve party ($60 per person) starting at 10 p.m. with food, open bar, Champagne toast and balloon drop at midnight.125 Datura St., 561-833-5300 
• Feelgood's and Lost Weekend are kicking off 2012 with two parties in one. Dance to pop down at Feelgood's, while a ‘90s prom party’ kicks it up at Lost Weekend. Cover is $20 and will include cocktail reception from 8 p.m.-10 p.m., Champagne toast at midnight and one of the best balloon drops you’ll ever see. 219 Clematis St., 561-833-6500
• Escape the crowds and enjoy an evening for two at Pistache French Bistro. Pistache will be hosting a French-style dinner featuring an amuse bouche, scallop mousseline ‘soufflé,’ pan-seared veal tenderloin medallions, grilled marinated colossal shrimp, and more, as well as a bottle of Champagne Gosset for the midnight countdown (per two guests). $145 per guest. 101 N. Clematis St., 561-833-5090
• Roxy's Pub will host a rooftop New Year’s Eve party, the perfect place to view the fireworks. To party like a VIP, private cabana rentals are available for $600, which includes cover for six, a bottle of Three Olives Vodka and a bottle of Champagne. 309 Clematis St., 561-296-7699

Downtown at the Gardens will be rocking New Year’s Eve from 11a.m. until the wee hours of January 1.

   The kid-friendly Noon Year's Eve will start the festivities from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Located at the carousel, kids will enjoy free carousel rides, games, face painting and a noon-time countdown, complete with party favors, noise makers and all the glittered, goofy hats a kid could want.

   Come 9 p.m., adults will ring in the new as the Downtown Countdown gets underway. Running till 12:30 a.m., Downtown at the Gardens’ Centre Court gets popping with Pee Wee Lewis and the Hues, fire shows, fortunetellers and party favors.

   Not to be outdone, Downtown at the Gardens’ bars and restaurants look to ring in the New Year with a few festivities of their own. Here is a sampling:

• Dirty Martini is making 2012 shaken and stirred. From 7-9 p.m., enjoy a buffet style dinner, complimentary martini and Champagne toast at midnight ($30 per person). The party continues until 3 a.m. with DJs keeping the music flowing. 561-799-1115
• Celebrate the last few moments of 2011 with Cabo Flats. Starting at 7 p.m. and running through to the waxing hours of 2012, the tequila will flow and the Champagne will runneth over at the Rockin’ New Year’s Eve Bash.561-624-0024
• RA Sushi’s Remix Party looks to celebrate New Year’s Eve a day later, letting all those ‘in the biz’ a chance to party like its 2011, even if they were working on those waning moments of 2011. From 8 p.m. to close, patrons can enjoy a plethora of specials on sushi, appetizers, tapas and sips. 561-340-2112 

Abacoa Town Center will be party rockin' to bring in 2012.

• Check out Jumby Bay for their New Year's Eve GLITTER BALL. With DJ JP spinning all your hit favorites all night, No Cover and a Champagne toast at midnight to ring in the new year.  You best be Sparkling, Blinging or Glittering when you walk in!  561-630-2030

Majority of this article was brought to us by our friends over at Palm Beach Illustrated. Leave us a comment on your past experiences at these New Years Eve celebrations or if you feel any place needs to be added.

Have a Safe & Happy New Year!

Animals Behind the 8-Ball Partner with AmsterDog Rescue for the Holiday Season

                                              

 Animals Behind the 8-Ball Partner with AmsterDog Rescue for the Holiday Season

The Rack Starz and their cause, Animals Behind the 8-Ball are partnering with AmsterDog Rescue to raise much needed awareness and money for their tireless efforts to the AmsterDog Rescue volunteers who help protect and save many helpless and abused animals.

To get the "ball" rolling The Rack Starz have put 500 of their 2012-2013 Limited Edition Collector Series 18-month Calendars a-side just for this cause. For every calendar purchased, The Rack Starz will donate $10.00 which will go directly to AmsterDog Rescue.  

This is the season of giving and there is no better way to do that than by giving a beautiful animal a fighting chance, while owning your very own Limited Edition Rack Starz Calendar. All you have to do is make sure you write "Amsterdog" in the special instructions message box at check out and we will know that with your purchase, you have chosen to help an animal in need.

The Rack Starz are also working on a one-of-a-kind Charity event for after the New Year where you can come meet and greet the ladies and get your calendar personally autographed. Plus, there will also be challenges, trick shots, instructions and so much more.

This is the season of giving and there is no better way to do that than give a wonderful animal a fighting chance, while getting a limited Edition Rack Starz Calendar!

About AmsterDog Rescue

AmsterDog Rescue began in seed after a small group of volunteers got together to help animals in need in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. We did fundraising, went down to rescue dogs and brought several vanloads of homeless pets up to the northeast and found them forever homes. In the process of that rewarding endeavor, we became aware of how many sweet adoptable dogs and cats were being put down every day right here in our own city shelters.

With a desire to help save these precious lives, we formed a small rescue effort and became an established group in May 2010 called AmsterDog Rescue, named after our beloved Amsterdam, found on the Ave he was named for. Amsterdam was found wandering the streets of Harlem, a big white 70 lb. scary looking Pit Bull mix, and many people would cross the street when they saw him. In fact, he is a big mush of a dog, loves to nuzzle, get belly rubs and keeps us all calm. He is our rock and truly is proof that they, in fact, rescue us!  www.amsterdog.com

About The Rack Starz

The Rack Starz are a group of sexy intelligent women from all over the world brought together to take the game of pool out of the smoke-filled back room and into the mainstream limelight. The Rack Starz are not only athletes, but they are also moms, models, actresses, nutritionists, CEOs, and marketing analysts, with many holding advanced degrees. Among these women, more than 15 languages are spoken representing a multitude of cultures making the Rack Starz true ambassadors to the billiards world.

The Rack Starz have created an insatiable desire for more with their "Shoot to Thrill, Play to Kill" approach and are committed to be amongst the best pool players in the world while promoting the game of billiards in a positive and enjoyable manner.

Rack Starz is an LLC based out of New York founded by Robert Moore, Larry Busacca, Gail Glazebrook and Jennifer Barretta. www.therackstarz.com

About the Calendar

This glossy full-color 2012-2013 Limited Edition Collector Series 18-month Calendar measures a serious 12" wide by 17" high retailing for $25.00 each plus shipping.

Calendar Credits: Art Direction & Photography: Larry Busacca, Design: Chris Galardi & Will Thresher, Digital Imaging Specialist: Ben Peterson. http://www.therackstarz.com/store.htm

Media Contact:

W2 Public Relations

Contact@w2publicrelations.com

The Top 10 PR Blunders of 2011

Most companies are ill equipped for a social media crisis, according to a study from this year. That’s bad news for brands, given not only the prevalence of social media but also because roughly half of this year’s biggest PR blunders were committed on Twitter.

To determine these public relations gaffes, PR Daily turned to its readers, asking them on several platforms—most prominently on their Google+ page—to name the year’s biggest screw-ups.

Upon receiving the answers, PR Daily editors locked themselves in a windowless room for days—consuming nothing but tepid coffee and random leftovers from the company fridge—to compile the final rankings.

And here they are, the top PR blunders of 2011, according to PR Daily readers.

10. Charlie Sheen’s meltdown

Given all the big stories of 2011—uprisings, natural disasters, brinksmanship in Washington—it’s easy to forget Sheen, whose very public meltdown and personal mantra #winning became a popular topic of discussion last spring.

The whole mess started with a radio interview, in which Sheen waxed nonsensical about a range of topics and spewed venomous comments about Jews. As a result, Sheen’s publicist quit and CBS fired him from “Two and a Half Men.” That didn’t stop Sheen from taking to Twitter, where he set a Guinness record for the Twitter account that reached 1 million followers fastest.

Just when it seemed Sheen had pulled some kind of social media coup on the Hollywood establishment, he embarked on a highly anticipated speaking tour. Ticket buyers walked out and demanded refunds, and the Sheen train—already derailed—ground to a halt.

Despite his erratic behavior and history of female abuse, we will always love his role in “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”

9. House Republicans and the middle-class tax cut

This is the PR Daily staff’s lone entry in the top 10 list, having not received a vote from readers (perhaps because it hadn’t yet happened when they were asked to cast their ballots).

Republicans in the House of Representative this week rejected a bipartisan proposal from the Senate to extend middle-class tax cuts and unemployment benefits for two months, during which time Congress would attempt to draft a long-term proposal.

The move has left media pundits on both sides of the aisle in a state of bewilderment—how could the party of no taxes be OK with a tax increase on the widest swath of Americans?—prompting even the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial boardto call it a fiasco.

“GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell famously said a year ago that his main task in the 112th Congress was to make sure that President Obama would not be re-elected. Given how he and House Speaker John Boehner have handled the payroll tax debate, we wonder if they might end up re-electing the President before the 2012 campaign even begins in earnest.

“The GOP leaders have somehow managed the remarkable feat of being blamed for opposing a one-year extension of a tax holiday that they are surely going to pass. This is no easy double play.

“Republicans have also achieved the small miracle of letting Mr. Obama position himself as an election-year tax cutter, although he's spent most of his Presidency promoting tax increases and he would hit the economy with one of the largest tax increases ever in 2013. This should be impossible.”

If the House GOP’s move in the latter part of 2011 helps drive Obama’s approval rating north, furthering his chances for reelection in 2012, this may go down as the biggest PR blunder of 2011—for Republicans, at least.

8. Knocking Detroit drivers when Chrysler is your client

Another social media miscue: A New Media Strategies employee, who was working on the firm’s Chrysler account, thought he sent this tweet from his personal account:

“I find it ironic that Detroit is known as the #motorcity and yet no one here knows how to f**king drive.”

Except he didn’t send it from his personal account; the tweet came from one of Chrysler’s official feeds. As a result of the mistake, New Media Strategies fired the employee, and Chrysler dropped New Media Strategies.

Meanwhile, everyone else who works in social media prayed to the Twitter gods that they would never make a similar mistake.

7. The Rupert Murdoch phone-tapping scandal

The phone-tapping scandal, in which employees of News Corp.’s London tabloid News of the World listened in on voicemail messages, isn’t the PR scandal. That’s a terrible (and illegal) ethics breach by a media outlet. Instead, it’s how the Murdoch-owned company handled the scandal—it shuttered the entire newspaper—and that several PR professionals were involved in the mess.

Andy Coulson, the top press aide for British Prime Minister David Cameron, resigned amid scrutiny that as editor of News of the World he played a part in the scandal, while at least 10 press officers at Scotland Yard were suspected of being in cahoots with News Corp.

6. Kenneth Cole’s tasteless Cairo tweet

Can’t blame this social media gaffe on a lowly intern, because the offending tweetcame straight from the top. As protesters poured into the streets of Cairo in early February—flooding Twitter with updates about the emerging revolution—fashion mogul Kenneth Cole jumped into the online fray with a promotion for his spring line:

“Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online.”

Cole took a beating for that one, prompting him to quickly apologize for the offending tweet, which the company also deleted.

The move was so senseless that some even wondered whether Cole had sent the tweet knowing it would cause an uproar and draw more attention to his brand—a sort of, “I don’t care what you say about me as long as you spell my name right” approach.

Perhaps most notable about the Cole gaffe is that it was the first of many social media mistakes to come in 2011. In that sense, Cole is a pioneer.

5. Lowe’s angers Muslim-Americans

With the exception of the payroll tax cuts, the Lowe’s debacle is the most recent gaffe on this list, starting in early December when the hardware chain pulled its ads from a TLC show “All-American Muslim” after a conservative group expressed concern.

Clearly, no one from Lowe’s watched the show—nor checked out the absurdity of the group making the claims—before it made such a drastic move.

The backlash online was swift and furious. People crowded onto the Lowe’s Facebookpage, unleashing vitriolic comments about the brand. Ultimately, Lowe’s apologized and explained its actions, but it wasn’t enough to stem the tide of negative sentiment. Tempers are still simmering over the company’s decision.

4. The Anthony Weiner debacle

It will forever be known as pulling a Weiner: tweeting something publicly that was meant to be private. In former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s case it was a picture of his penis, sent to a young woman who wasn’t his wife. The picture, which was just of the politician’s underwear-covered groin, briefly appeared on his Twitter feed before it was deleted.

That was a disgusting and embarrassing mistake. Even more awkward, however, was his handling of the incident.

Instead of owning up to the mistake, he lied to the public and press, claiming someone had hijacked his account. It’s difficult to say whether Weiner would still have his congressional seat had he come clean right away, but his deceit ensured his political demise.

3. Bank of America’s surcharge

Banks are suffering a personality crisis. They went from villains of the corporate world because of the economic meltdown of 2008 and subsequent recession to a higher profile as the archvillains of 2011, thanks to the Occupy Wall Street movement.

With such simmering resentment toward the banks, any move perceived as anti-consumer would be viewed poorly in the public eye. Despite this obvious notion, Bank of America issued a $5 monthly surcharge on customers who use their debit cards.

Customers expressed outrage; many took their business elsewhere, and, ultimately, the bank reversed its decision. The PR debacle, along with the lingering effects of the recession and fears overs Europe’s debt crisis, has helped weaken the company’s share value. This week, Bank of America’s stock price fell below $5 a share.

2. Penn State’s handling of the Sandusky scandal

It’s tough to call this one a public relations gaffe, because it is a human tragedy of sickening proportions.

Jerry Sandusky, the longtime defensive coordinator at Penn State University, allegedly sexually abused young boys. Top university officials, including head football coach Joe Paterno, allegedly knew about at least one of the incidents and failed to alert police.

The PR aspect enters when it comes to the university’s crisis communications.

Penn State’s initial statement from President Graham Spanier about the matter threw the university’s support behind the officials who allegedly covered up Sandusky’s behavior, while ignoring the victims of the tragedy.

University trustees followed up with more-appropriate remarks, but it wasn’t enough to undo the damage caused by the school’s tin ear.

What could have been a horrible incident—involving a few, albeit key, members of the organization who were identified and dealt with—became an institutional scandal, calling into question the very mission of the school.

Making matters worse (from a PR standpoint) is that the university knew for months about the grand jury investigation that led to the charges against Sandusky, yet it was ill-prepared when the news went public.

1. Netflix

Can bad PR relations sink a company that has revenue approaching $1 billion? Hard to say, although Netflix seems to be the canary in the mine.

The movie-rental service expects its first year in the red, owing to a mind-boggling rebranding effort, which started with a poorly written and ill-timed announcement that it would raise its prices.

To grasp the foolishness of Netflix’s actions, let’s start with the price hike inJuly.

In a slapdash blog post, the company unveiled a price hike, which it framed as savings for its customers. Basically, it was unbundling its DVD-by-mail service and its video-streaming business. All told, the price hike amounted to a couple of dollars a month; it seemed to be Netflix’s tone-deaf announcement that sparked such anger.

And, oh boy, was there anger. Who knew people could get so mad over movie rentals? Social media users dumped negative comments on the Netflix blog, Facebook page, and through Twitter. The company stayed mum.

Although Netflix was losing a yet-unknown number of subscribers over the hike, cooler heads started to prevail until CEO Reed Hastings decided to chime in.

In a September blog post, Hasting blamed the lousy reception of the price hike on the company’s poor communication. “When Netflix is evolving rapidly, however, I need to be extra-communicative,” he said. “This is the key thing I got wrong.”

Then, Hastings and friends committed another blunder—by announcing the rebranding of the company. The DVD-by-mail group would spin off into a separate company called Qwikster, while the video-streaming unit would operate under Netflix.

This move brought a host of problems, among them that the websites for Qwikster and Netflix didn’t communicate and that the company apparently failed to check whether the Qwikster Twitter account was available.

It wasn’t. The account was manned by a teenager with a penchant for foul language and references to drug use. Oops.

Backlash over the move was so severe that Netflix ultimately abandoned the plan. In an interview with The New York Times Magazine, Hastings blamed all the screw-ups on the company’s moving too fast.

In its third-quarter earnings report, Netflix said it had lost 800,000 subscribers, causing its stock price to plunge.

Do you agree?  Was anyone left off?  Leave your comments below.

Report comes from our friends over at Ragan’s PR Daily.  Written by founding editior, Michael Sebastian.

"Remember Ben" Anonymous Donors pays off K-Mart Layaway Accounts

• By MARGERY A. BECK Associated Press

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - The young father stood in line at the Kmart layaway counter, wearing dirty clothes and worn-out boots. With him were three small children.

He asked to pay something on his bill because he knew he wouldn't be able to afford it all before Christmas. Then a mysterious woman stepped up to the counter.

"She told him, `No, I'm paying for it,'" recalled Edna Deppe, assistant manager at the store in Indianapolis. "He just stood there and looked at her and then looked at me and asked if it was a joke. I told him it wasn't, and that she was going to pay for him. And he just busted out in tears."

At Kmart stores across the country, Santa seems to be getting some help: Anonymous donors are paying off strangers' layaway accounts, buying the Christmas gifts other families couldn't afford, especially toys and children's clothes set aside by impoverished parents.

Before she left the store Tuesday evening, the Indianapolis woman in her mid-40s had paid the layaway orders for as many as 50 people. On the way out, she handed out $50 bills and paid for two carts of toys for a woman in line at the cash register.

"She was doing it in the memory of her husband who had just died, and she said she wasn't going to be able to spend it and wanted to make people happy with it," Deppe said. The woman did not identify herself and only asked people to "remember Ben," an apparent reference to her husband.

Deppe, who said she's worked in retail for 40 years, had never seen anything like it.

"It was like an angel fell out of the sky and appeared in our store," she said.

Most of the donors have done their giving secretly.

Dona Bremser, an Omaha nurse, was at work when a Kmart employee called to tell her that someone had paid off the $70 balance of her layaway account, which held nearly $200 in toys for her 4-year-old son.

"I was speechless," Bremser said. "It made me believe in Christmas again."

Dozens of other customers have received similar calls in Nebraska, Michigan, Iowa, Indiana and Montana.

The benefactors generally ask to help families who are squirreling away items for young children. They often pay a portion of the balance, usually all but a few dollars or cents so the layaway order stays in the store's system.

The phenomenon seems to have begun in Michigan before spreading, Kmart executives said.

"It is honestly being driven by people wanting to do a good deed at this time of the year," said Salima Yala, Kmart's division vice president for layaway.

The good Samaritans seem to be visiting mainly Kmart stores, though a Wal-Mart spokesman said a few of his stores in Joplin, Mo., and Chicago have also seen some layaway accounts paid off.

Kmart representatives say they did nothing to instigate the secret Santas or spread word of the generosity. But it's happening as the company struggles to compete with chains such as Wal-Mart and Target.

Kmart may be the focus of layaway generosity, Yala said, because it is one of the few large discount stores that has offered layaway year-round for about four decades. Under the program, customers can make purchases but let the store hold onto their merchandise as they pay it off slowly over several weeks.

The sad memories of layaways lost prompted at least one good Samaritan to pay off the accounts of five people at an Omaha Kmart, said Karl Graff, the store's assistant manager.

"She told me that when she was younger, her mom used to set up things on layaway at Kmart, but they rarely were able to pay them off because they just didn't have the money for it," Graff said.

He called a woman who had been helped, "and she broke down in tears on the phone with me. She wasn't sure she was going to be able to pay off their layaway and was afraid their kids weren't going to have anything for Christmas."

"You know, 50 bucks may not sound like a lot, but I tell you what, at the right time, it may as well be a million dollars for some people," Graff said.

Graff's store alone has seen about a dozen layaway accounts paid off in the last 10 days, with the donors paying $50 to $250 on each account.

"To be honest, in retail, it's easy to get cynical about the holidays, because you're kind of grinding it out when everybody else is having family time," Graff said. "It's really encouraging to see this side of Christmas again."

Lori Stearnes of Omaha also benefited from the generosity of a stranger who paid all but $58 of her $250 layaway bill for toys for her four youngest grandchildren.

Stearnes said she and her husband live paycheck to paycheck, but she plans to use the money she was saving for the toys to help pay for someone else's layaway.

In Missoula, Mont., a man spent more than $1,200 to pay down the balances of six customers whose layaway orders were about to be returned to a Kmart store's inventory because of late payments.

Store employees reached one beneficiary on her cellphone at Seattle Children's Hospital, where her son was being treated for an undisclosed illness.

"She was yelling at the nurses, 'We're going to have Christmas after all!'" store manager Josine Murrin said.

A Kmart in Plainfield Township, Mich., called Roberta Carter last week to let her know a man had paid all but 40 cents of her $60 layaway.

Carter, a mother of eight from Grand Rapids, Mich., said she cried upon hearing the news. She and her family have been struggling as she seeks a full-time job.

"My kids will have clothes for Christmas," she said.

Angie Torres, a stay-at-home mother of four children under the age of 8, was in the Indianapolis Kmart on Tuesday to make a payment on her layaway bill when she learned the woman next to her was paying off her account.

"I started to cry. I couldn't believe it," said Torres, who doubted she would have been able to pay off the balance. "I was in disbelief. I hugged her and gave her a kiss."

Matt Sherman Interviews the Starz

Last month About.com's Matt Sherman interviewed our Rack Starz at the first official press day in NYC. Here are some of the highlights from the interview. For the whole story visit Billiards.About.com.

How will the Rack Starz help combat the image many people have of pool players and even pool professionals as unsavory characters?

Jennifer "9MM" Barretta: "Pool has had a long history of having a bad reputation--the hustling aspect, men and gambling and we're [the Rack Starz are] kind of showing you don't have to be a low life to play good pool. Look good, a cleaner sexier image than what's been out there.

Yomaylin “Smiley” Feliz: The world's changing, there's less smoke in the pool halls we don't see the same things happening everywhere. Same with the Rack Starz. We've got sexuality and confidence, our billiards skills and we're all sexy. We're confident."

Alison Fischer: “We've gotten more eyes to see the sport. This is what we're working towards--a fresh image, a fresh face for pool as a whole.”

Liz, I want to talk very specifically about respect from male viewers-they say you and the talented ladies of pool can't play-I've seen many of you play in person, and would beg to differ.

Liz Ford: "Any of us on the table on them will show you why they're wrong. Breaking rack after rack and winning Nine Ball. We win just like they can't... it's an old habit, for a long time, men were the major sex to play sports.