That#8217;s right, it#8217;s that special time of year where you can show off your holiday cheer with a little special blog flair #8212; falling snow. To get it started:

1. Go to your dashboard.


2. Navigate to Settings » General.


3. Check the box next to #8220;Show falling snow on this blog.#8221;


4. Roast some chestnuts.

Even Texas boys like me who only saw snow a handful of times growing up can enjoy it all month long, until we turn it off on January 4^th.

If you are a terrible Grinch or if the snow just slows down your computer or confuses your cat, you can go to your personal settings page and hide the snow everywhere you go.

This year#8217;s offer is about two upgrades that first saw the light of day during the past twelve months: Custom Design and Premium Themes.

For the next 24 hours if you pick up any of our Premium Themes we#8217;ll throw in a totally free one year subscription to the Custom Design Upgrade, which would usually cost you $30. Depending on the theme you choose, that#8217;s between 30% and 60% of the Premium Theme#8217;s value.

Don#8217;t miss this great occasion to stand out from the crowd, by adding a great Premium Theme to your site, and customizing its fonts and CSS to make it truly yours.

If you already have a Custom Design subscription, no problem, we#8217;ll add an extra year to it for free.

If you#8217;re not sure on what Premium Themes and the Custom Design upgrade actually do:

Premium Themes: feature detailed designs, exciting options for customization, and exclusive support directly from the theme authors themselves.

Custom Design: easily customize the fonts in your theme, and dive into CSS to make all the presentational changes you desire.

It#8217;s only one day, it happens today, but the gift is yours for one year.

Don#8217;t wait anymore to browse our Premium Themes collection.

Starting today, those same authors can move their articles and collaborative journals to WordPress—and they have the power to choose whether to move to a self-hosted WordPress installation powered by the freely-available, open-source Annotum themes, or to have their Annotum-powered site hosted for free here on WordPress.com. Knol will slowly shut down over the next year, and we#8217;ve worked closely with Google and Solvitor LLC to make this transition as simple as possible.

We here at WordPress.com are thrilled to provide an easy, fast way for Knol authors to move to their new homes without the need for configuring their own installation. And WordPress.com users who would like to start new sites powered by the Annotum platform can activate one of the two new Annotum-enabled themes on new blogs and get started right away. It#8217;s yet another way the WordPress platform and WordPress.com are enabling the democratization of publishing and sharing of information with the world.

For more detailed information on the Annotum Project, please visit the official site. If you#8217;re moving to WordPress.com and have questions about the process, please see our step-by-step guide and our list of frequently asked questions.

Selecta is loaded with elements that highlight your images and videos.  First, there#8217;s the featured slider that showcases your sticky posts at the top of the front page. Next, there#8217;s the #8220;Latest Posts#8221; row that places your four most recent posts in fun, rounded boxes, also on the front page. That#8217;s not all — if you create a post with the video or image Post Format, Selecta will display your content in a wide, one-column template on the single post view. This ensures that your images and videos receive your readers#8217; undivided attention. Talk about showing off!

I certainly haven#8217;t revealed everything this theme has to offer.  Click on over to the Theme Showcase to read more about Selecta and all of its great features.

One of the most common questions we answer is, #8220;Can I have my own domain on WordPress.com?#8221; The answer to that question is a resounding YES!

We are happy to give you a free website at WordPress.com (something like anyaddress.wordpress.com) but if you want to also use your own domain, you can do that very easily.

You don#8217;t need to create another site #8211; you simply need the inexpensive Domain Mapping Upgrade. In layman#8217;s terms, domain mapping just means pointing example.com to your anyaddress.wordpress.com site, so when your friends visit example.com they will see your super-cool site hosted at WordPress.com, and example.com will remain the visible address.

That#8217;s it!

• It doesn#8217;t matter where you registered your domain #8211; you can still map it to your WordPress.com site. Check out How to Map an Existing Domain.

• Still need to get a custom domain? You can do it all through WordPress.com. Check out How to Register and Map a New Domain.

• Have a domain already, but want to put your WordPress.com site on a subdomain (like blog.example.com)? We can do that, too. Read How to Map a Subdomain.

After you map your domain, make sure you Update the Primary Domain to your shiny new personalized domain so when people visit your example.com site, that#8217;s the address that stays visible in the address bar. Instructions for doing that are in each of the above posts, or you can find it under Upgrades gt; Domains on that blog#8217;s dashboard after you#8217;ve completed the domain mapping process.

Oh, and we#8217;re not jealous, either. If you ever decide to transfer the site off WordPress.com, you can take your domain with you, too. Check out How to Transfer a Domain and if you prefer one of our super talented Happiness Engineers to move your entire website for you to a self-hosted WordPress solution, check out Guided Transfer.

Spread the Word!