Exploring how a new storytelling platform is transforming holiday entertainment into an evergreen family tradition.

For the past several years, I’ve been working on a question that sits at the intersection of storytelling, play, and purpose.

Every year the holiday season inspires incredible creativity across entertainment, toys, games, collectibles, and family traditions. Entire industries come alive around experiences that families return to year after year.

But despite the scale of the holiday entertainment and retail economy, relatively few entertainment properties are intentionally designed to direct meaningful, recurring funding toward charities and community organizations.

That question ultimately led me to create a project called Knotty or Nice.

Knotty or Nice is a holiday storytelling experience designed to become a new seasonal tradition for families — something they return to each December the way many families revisit classic holiday films.

The story itself unfolds in a whimsical holiday world where the forces behind “naughty” and “nice” are more complicated than they first appear. At the center of the mischief is an unpredictable fruitcake-loving troublemaker — a mischievous Spirit whose antics ripple through a community of characters tied to holiday traditions. As the season unfolds, unexpected alliances, surprises, and a little bit of chaos begin to reveal that the spirit of the season may depend on far more than simply keeping a list.

What makes the project especially different is its structure.

At the center of the experience is a patented non-linear storytelling platform that allows audiences to experience the story in a different sequence.

Rather than every viewer seeing the same narrative unfold in the same order, each subscriber receives their own unique sequence of the story’s episodes. The system is designed so that every household experiences a distinct version of the narrative journey.

That means two families watching during the same holiday season may encounter different character arcs and story connections depending on how their sequence unfolds. In fact, neighbors comparing notes about the show may discover they experienced the story in completely different ways.

The goal is to create an experience that encourages conversation, discovery, and repeat engagement — the kind of storytelling that families naturally enjoy revisiting and discussing together.

The project is now well underway, with issued patents protecting the storytelling platform, creative development in progress, and early conversations forming around production, music, and brand collaborations.

We’re also fortunate to already have charities and community sports associations aligning with the project, helping shape the philanthropic mission and demonstrating how the story world can connect with real communities.

The project is currently targeting a December 2027 debut, allowing time to build the story world thoughtfully and explore collaborations that could extend the experience for families beyond the screen.

From the beginning, Knotty or Nice was designed not only as a film experience, but as a holiday story universe capable of supporting many different forms of creative expression. The narrative structure allows the world, characters, and traditions within it to expand naturally over time, creating opportunities for storytelling, play, and shared family experiences that evolve from one holiday season to the next.

Some of the most enduring entertainment properties eventually become more than stories. They evolve into worlds that inspire toys, games, collectibles, puzzles, and shared family traditions that families return to year after year.

From what I’ve observed, the toy industry often refers to these kinds of stories as evergreen properties — worlds that become part of the rhythm of family life across generations.

The long-term ambition for the project is to help direct more than $100 million to charities and community organizations within its first five years through a combination of storytelling, seasonal experiences, and products connected to the world of the film.

That vision is one of the reasons I was excited to join the People of Play community.

The toy and game industry has an incredible history of transforming stories into experiences that families interact with year after year. Some of the most beloved products in our homes are the ones that become part of family traditions.

Knotty or Nice is still growing, but as the story world expands I see tremendous opportunity for imaginative products that extend the experience families have with the narrative.

Possibilities include:

• puzzles that reveal hidden story connections
• collectible characters and seasonal figurines
• advent-style discovery experiences
• cooperative family games tied to the narrative
• creative holiday activity kits
• seasonal collectibles that families revisit every year

One example I’ve been thinking about is a puzzle whose meaning changes depending on the sequence viewers experienced in the story. Two families could build the same puzzle and discover completely different connections based on the version of the story they saw.

Because each household experiences a unique version of the narrative, the creative possibilities for interactive and collectible products are unusually rich.

For creators and companies who enjoy building experiences around storytelling, early collaboration on a project like this can be especially interesting — not just to help shape how the story world expands, but to imagine the kinds of products families might return to every holiday season.

The toy and game industry is filled with some of the most imaginative creators in the world, and many of the best products become part of family traditions for years — sometimes generations.

As Knotty or Nice continues to develop, I’m excited to see how creators across storytelling, toys, games, and consumer products might help bring pieces of this world to life.

If the idea of building experiences that families return to every holiday season — while helping direct meaningful funding to charities — sounds interesting, I’d love to connect.

Sometimes the most interesting collaborations start with a simple conversation.