We ended our first year with “Make this holiday historic!,” a campaign to raise awareness of the many wonderful historic sites, museums, and organizations across the country.  The goal, ultimately, is to draw new attendees, fans, volunteers, members, and donors.

In a country in which more than $450 billion is spent at retail during the holidays and more than 30 million people attend the movies, shouldn’t we make more people aware of the great events–and shopping–available at the tens of thousands of historic sites and history-related organizations across the country?

Open to any history-related organization or historic site, the “Make this holiday historic!” campaign consisted of . . .

• An icon next to every holiday event listed on The History List
• An interactive calendar (archived here) that featured 33 events during the month of December (through January 1)
• Web and newsletter badges for all of the organizations that participated
• An app on Facebook
• Daily posts to Facebook and Twitter

We announced the list of featured events in late December.  Thanks to the organizations that participated and the individuals who supported and shared information about the campaign through their blog and Facebook posts, shares, and “Likes,” and their Tweets.

As noted in the recap below, we plan to do a campaign in 2013 and have made it eve easier for organizations.  In fact, they can enter their December 2013 holiday events now and tag them for inclusion in the 2013 campaign.