I wanna tell you a story, but I feel it might still have some way to go yet, so there may well be updates.
As my Dad always says a good story starts with,
“Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin”
Basically I’m addicted to taking photos and videos, ooh I wonder if there’s a name for that, I’ll just Google it…shutter nutter! Love it! I’m one of those.
Anything that brings me joy and peace. Anything I can look upon in dark times to help me into the light and sweet memories for my children to cherish. Oh and pieces of wood on a beach, I have plenty of photos of that!
Grandad wanted to be sensible and invest in the boys future for Christmas. I respectfully asked him to just give them something to enjoy unwrapping and think of him and we can save the grown up stuff for a later date.
Harry has been trying to save up for FC25 for ages! He was cross that he’d forgotten to ask Santa for it (between you and I Santa would have thought it far too expensive and stuck with a Terrys chocolate orange!) and already asked for a fitness watch from us.
With Grandads approval (and money) I ordered it for him. It was a bit blinking obvious what it was so I left it in the padded envelope and then wrapped it in a bigger box.
Sunday 14th December came, our day to celebrate Christmas with Grandad and see the panto which was blooming brilliant (and the vdubs but that’s another story).
We’d had our dinner and it was present time. I knew Harry was going to go bonkers so I took a video.
Well he didn’t disappoint! At first he thought it was a prank and then when he saw inside the final package he threw it down and engulfed grandad in a bear hug. To which Dad was incredibly British and remarked
“Oh dear, was it the wrong way up?”
Harry then went on to say he loved it and grandad remarked, wonderful.
In the mean time Ollie had been a super sweetie, retrieved said package Harry had flung, taken it out of the wrapper and passed it to him.
Well it was all quite wholesome so I popped it on Facebook to spread the Christmas cheer.
We tend to watch a bit of TikTok together as a family on our Super King just before the boys go to bed.
I can’t remember if it was Harry or Ollie who asked to put the video of Grandad winning at Christmas on TikTok. We only have about 8 videos on there of things like the Sprite challenge, the Tortilla challenge and unfortunately Ollie clearing his nasal passage, all things the boys have requested to do and be filmed doing.
Well blow me down with a feather if it hasn’t gone and gone viral!
There were a few likes and a few comments in the first hour, one of which said it was going to go viral, well they weren’t wrong!
We are currently at 11.8 MILLION VIEWS!
WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON???!!!
It was a little bit exciting at first and I was truly happy for Harry, Ollie and Grandad.
The comments were full of positivity and warmth. If there had been a hint of anything unkind I would have deleted the post quick smart.
Here’s just a few of the 6,810 comments we currently have,
@user26792178256623: I love how the kid is immediately focused on grandpa and only after that on the game. That is real gratitude 💚
@Anna: he chucked the present and went in for the hug 😭😭😭 boy was raised right. grateful and loving.
@deb_defaz_1: It’s the “oh, dear” for me and that his name is Harry!! I love the Brits!
@Emma Gorley: After watching this, I believe having a british grandfather would cure all my problems
Well the likes kept on coming. Ollie, math brain, worked it out at roughly 55 a second.
I updated Grandad, I’d especially liked the one that said he looked like he’d smell of peppermint and tobacco or the one that said he looked expensive! Oh and of course all the ones about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Harry Potter and Dumbledore.
He asked if there were any old ladies with snooker tables who seemed interested. I explained it wasn’t a dating app.
It was surreal watching the comments come in from all over the world. I know that because they were in different languages.
The twins wanted to get to a million but I had to manage their expectations and say that was unlikely. Prove me wrong why don’t you?!
Then the requests from global media agencies started coming in and it got serious.
Harry saw one from ESPN and he likes them, I don’t know how they’ve even crossed paths. I asked him if he wanted to wait for a possible spot of cash or let ESPN have a crack at it. He said he really didn’t care about the money but he wanted to see the video on their pages, turns out they are linked to Disney+. It took me a while to track them down again, but we got there in the end and the twins smiles when we saw their video pinned to their page was fabulous.
In the mean time Xbox had commented on the video and the hug. Quite a few people have told them to give the boys a gift, but there have also been a few who have taken the opportunity to tell them PS5 is better. I put a cheeky comment on about the boys being grateful for any merch they wanted to send their way and that they had hugs on tap or a few choice dance moves if preferred, but unfortunately someone accused me of begging so I took it down.
It wasn’t until I was sharing it with my stepdaughter that she showed me Rita Ora had commented on it! 9 hours earlier and I hadn’t noticed! I got star struck! What do I do? Lexi told me to give it a heart. I accidentally clicked the thumbs down button! Then I unclicked it and added a heart so hopefully Rita didn’t get the bits inbetween.
Obviously news spread and then one of my work friends pointed out that I might be letting the boys once in a lifetime slip away.
That’s when the anxiety hit! That wasn’t her intention, but I suddenly felt overwhelmed, what was I going to do? What if I got it wrong? What if it was too late? What if it lead to nastiness?
It was all too much so I buried my head in the sand for a little while, hoped it would go away and that I might be able to start sleeping again.
Then I decided to put my big girl pants on and sort stuff out!
I’d done a business A Level. Well I certainly started one, but left to study fashion, but those few months came in handy!
Right. I needed a company who I felt I could trust who I could hand all the responsibility over to and then I’d at least done something.
I Googled, researched and read for quite some time until I decided on Newsflare. I liked the cut of their jib. Something about their transparency resonated with me and they just seemed to make sense.
I asked Lee what he thought and Kayleigh because I can always trust her to make good life choices for me. Grandad was happy to support my decisions.
I also sent a message to George at Asda as comments were being made about Harry’s t-shirt, a message to EA games who created FC25 and a nice one to Xbox. Then a message to Lee to say, in for a penny, in for a pound.
I also contacted someone I went to school with who has a fabulous looking Graphic Design company on the off chance he might know someone in the know. He asked me what exactly I was looking for so I honestly replied I didn’t have a clue. I’ll be in touch again in another thirty years with a random question though!
Lee then discovered the video on Facebook so it was another sleepless night.
I contacted the stealer of our video and requested he take it down. We had a nice old chat about how he’d had a mental breakdown 18 months before and had started the site to help share positivity and hope. I gave him done numbers for support and he was very apologetic.
Now you are either going to think I’m a raving fruit loop or you too will have lost someone and understand.
I literally didn’t know what to do for the best and had got myself worked up into a frenzy. I picked up my mobile to send an enquiry to Newsflare and an email popped up at the top of my page literally saying Lucy don’t let this offer get away! Claim it by today! Claim it by tonight. Well that had my mum written all over it. Well it didn’t, it was from The Fork, but you know what I mean. Or you don’t.
So I did it!
They came back to me, but because it was over TikTok and they didn’t have a blue verified dot, I couldn’t be sure they were legit.
Not letting that perturb me, I logged into my old LinkedIn account and found them on there. Turns out their chef of staff and I have a mutual friend so I decided to message him. What a lovely chap! He messaged me straight back and put my mind at ease and talked us through the process.
Grandad has signed his consent form as a model! That made me chuckle!
So now we just wait and see. I don’t think we will have made a fortune, but Ollie would like us to make enough to get him this basketball game he wants and to video him getting it!
The boys honest take from it all has been that if you are kind and grateful the world loves you back. As long as it stays this way I am happy to continue and maybe Grandad will get his old lady with a snooker table. I mean, I don’t think she has to be old.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night xxx
A cheeky little Twinkle update xxx 