For what’s always one of the most memorable nights of the year, last night the Spa Week team had our annual company holiday dinner party! Our CEO Cheryl Reid always picks a famously delicious restaurant in the touristy midtown area so that we can marvel at the exalted Rockefeller Christmas Tree or some other must-see NYC holiday destination. This year we headed up to The Sea Grill inside Rockefeller Center, with a view right onto that most famous ice skating rink.

We enjoyed an evening filled with crab cakes (the kind with 95% crab!), steaks, decadent desserts and many refills on our bubbly, wine and key lime martinis. It was also an evening filled with girl talk, as we somehow got onto the topic of how the married folks among us got proposed to.

Without naming names, I will tell you what we learned about three our fellow ring-wearing Spa Week colleagues:

PROPOSAL #1: One of us got proposed to on a romantic horse-drawn carriage in New York’s Central Park. But the only problem – this girl happens to be a crime show junkie and kept pointing out the parts of the park where people got raped and murdered. As the ride was coming to an end, her now-hubby finally interjected: Can you PLEASE stop talking about death, I’m trying to propose to you!

PROPOSAL #2: One of us was watching an awards show, gushing over the gorgeous dresses. While sitting on the couch, she saw her boyfriend trying to get her attention out of the corner of her eye. She ignored him (why is he being so weird?) and continued to comment about how stunning one particular celebrity on the red carpet was. Turns out, he was trying to show her that he was holding an engagement ring.

PROPOSAL #3: One of us had been dating her boyfriend for a while, and they suddenly felt it was time they finally make things official. With no formal proposal, the two secretly escaped to Canada… and eloped! And lived happily ever after.

And in the middle of this juicy conversation, we turned to the ice rink and saw PROPOSAL #4… everyone crowded around the middle of the rink – someone was getting proposed to right then and there! And it happened again for ANOTHER couple (PROPOSAL #5?) during dessert too. Now that’s what I call getting ICE!

Even with a dinner table of mostly single women who just work together, it was the most romantic evening we could have hoped for in a holiday party. Check out some pictures from our love-struck evening.

And those 95%-crab crab cakes... YUM.

Please give a warm Spa Week welcome to the newest member of our team: Heather Abbott! Heather will serve as our Vice President Gift Card Marketing. So what does the VP of Gift Card Marketing do? She oversees all the sales channels of Spa Week’s National Gift Card Program as well as our Affiliate program for bloggers. (Join us if you haven’t yet, bloggererati!)

Let’s get to know Heather, shall we? She brings almost six years of gift card industry experience both on the retail side and through various consulting projects. Heather just completed a 2-year term as a Board Member of the Incentive Gift Card Council (IGCC) and is currently serving on the 2012 Incentive Marketing Association (IMA) Summit planning committee.

Prior to entering the gift card industry, she spent five years in marketing and sales for Coca-Cola and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. She received both her BS and MBA from Cornell University where she currently serves as a regional District Director for the CALS Alumni Association. (Let’s Go Red!)

Cheryl Reid, Spa Week’s CEO and Founder says: “We are proud and excited to have Heather join the Spa Week family. She is highly respected throughout the industry and brings with her an extensive portfolio of relationships. Heather’s background as a Marketer and Business Developer makes her a natural fit to take the Spa Week gift card program to the next level. Her passion is evident to all who meet her and we look forward to working with her as we lead the spa industry down new and exciting paths.”

The Spa & Wellness Gift Card by Spa Week is valid year-round at over 4,500 spas across North America and is available online in either plastic or digital form. Gift cards are also on sale through the end of the year in case you haven’t heard: $89.99 for a $100 card + FREE gift box, or 10% off any other denomination.

In addition, the Spa & Wellness Gift Card is now available at over 17,000 retail locations across the United States and may also be purchased in bulk at a discount as part of Spa Week’s Corporate Gift Card Sales program. Also run by, you guessed it, Heather Abbott.

According to wefollow.com, a user-powered directory of Twitter accounts organized by interest, these are the top 5 most influential tagged #spa. We’re not the least bit surprised to see our recent partner, @ISpaDoYou, the Twitter account of the International Spa Association, at #1.

We’re thrilled to have @SpaWeek ring in at 2nd. Our ultimate goal in joining forces with ISPA is to spread our shared vision of bringing the health and wellness benefits of the spa lifestyle to the masses, and if this is any indication, we’re on the right track.

As American Spa Magazine put it: “Two of the biggest names in our business, ISPA and Spa Week, have teamed up. Read the ISPA + SPA WEEK story at American Spa Magazine.

Coming in the next 3 spots on WeFollow are @TalkSpas, @beautytipshub and @LeadingSpas… all worth following if you’re looking for the best of #spa in the Twitterverse.

Want more great #spa Tweeps on your radar? Here, 5 of @SPAWEEK‘s favorites:

@AmericanSpaMag
@MoreSpaTraffic
@MarkTheSpaMan
@HealingSpas
@AmHealthBeauty

We are thrilled to announce our brand new partnership with the International SPA Association!

Since 1991, the International SPA Association has been recognized worldwide as the professional organization and voice of the spa industry, representing more than 3,200 health and wellness facilities and providers in 83 countries.

Spa Week Media Group and ISPA share the vision of bringing the health and wellness benefits of the spa lifestyle to the world at large, and together we look forward to making this a reality more than ever before.

A word from ISPA President Lynne McNees: “The spa lifestyle is accessible to everyone. Through our partnership with Spa Week Media Group we’ll be able to reach many potential spa-goers and inform them that the spa is the place to go to educate yourself on how to lead a more healthful and balanced life.”

A word from our Spa Week Media Group CEO and President Cheryl Reid: “The joining together of Spa Week Media Group and ISPA brings together for the first time the two most significant players in the spa industry. This historic alliance between our companies will further our mutual goal to spread the wellness lifestyle to the masses.”

Read more at www.experienceispa.com, and browse their site to learn about ISPA and the wealth of resources and information they bring to the spa industry.

Last night, Team SPA WEEK had a festive holiday celebration at Del Frisco’s steakhouse, near the famous Rockefeller Center Chistmas Tree in New York City. We wanted to share a little glimpse of the evening with you, so we passed around the camera and made a little slideshow below! We’ll also put the pics up on our Facebook page and tag ourselves if you’d prefer to check them out that way.

There’s always fun to be had during the week in our office, located by NYC’s Union Square, but it was wonderful to be able to push all work aside and spend a night eating, drinking, laughing (and gossiping) around a non-conference table.

SPA WEEK Media Group has been growing like crazy; this year’s holiday party more than doubled in size from last year’s (and more than quadrupled in awesomeness, so I hear). It’s a really exciting place to be! Last night was yet another assurance to us all as to how lucky we are to be part of such an amazing group of people.

On behalf of the company, we thank you so much for your support; it’s you that keeps us going and we wish you could have been there too! Have a very happy SPAliday.