Merry Network has acquired ChristmasFans.com.

The site was a dormant domain that at one time house a Christmas link directory and later a forum. In resurrecting the domain Merry Network has launched an all-new Christmas top site. This provides the Christmas community with yet another free linking resource that will draw visitors to member sites.

ChristmasFans.com becomes the 26th legacy site of the Merry Network family.

LinkChristmas.com, a Christmas niche web directory, has been redesigned and expanded. Due to its popularity it has been moved to a faster server and upgraded in features. Link Christmas.com was originally developed in 2006 and features more than 400 hand selected and catagorized links all dedicated to Christmas.

With its high Google pagerank the directory is really a gift to the overall Christmas community that maintains year round sites. Links at LinkChristmas.com are free, unless sponsored section or partner links are desired.

New features of the site include linking a site’s Twitter feed to their site profile, as well as a recent webshot of the site and user rankings. Video capability has also been added to site profiles. All registered link holders at LinkChristmas.com are encouraged to log in to the site to up their links and to take advantage of new features.

Merry Network is pleased to announce the launch of a new service via ChristmasNewswire.com: press release distribution. Since 2007 Christmas Newswire has gathered and published holiday-specific news and information and distributed that information through hundreds of websites that pick up or carry Christmas headlines. Now any organization with Christmas specific news can publish their press relase via Christmas Newswire for $49 and reach thousands of Christmas readers.

To submit a press release, click here.

Mistletoe.ws has launched as the newest member of the Merry Network.

The site is the first in a series of keyword-specific mini-sites intended to draw seasonal traffic through search engines. The smaller sites contain targeted information designed to bring new users to larger sites of the network through linking and content sharing. Built as a result of successful testing of Candy Cane.ws and Eggnog.ws first established in 2007 these new mini-sites cater to the “niche-within-the-niche”. By addressing related topics through small sites the overall network continues to be recognized as a leader in the overall holiday category.

Similar such sites will launch in the coming weeks and months to bolster the positioning of Merry Network legacy sites in the search engines.

The premium domain Santa.us.com now belongs to the Merry Network.

“We have long searched for a strong Santa domain to compliment one of our legacy sites, SantaUpdate.com” said Jeff Westover, President of Merry Network LLC. “Tracking Santa is our tradition, both online and offline dating back almost 20 years but Santa is a much bigger subject than Christmas Eve and we’re excited to work on a project dedicated solely to him. Unlke DefendingSanta.com, this new domain will be specifically designed and directed to the younger market and Santa-lovers everywhere.”

No potential launch date has yet been set for the project.

Merry Network has acquired Decorative Candles.net, an e-commerce portal dedicated to candles.

“We feel this is a natural fit for our audience and the first of several such gift-specific offerings we hope to make in the future,” noted Jeff Westover, President of Merry Network LLC.

The site has a three year history and is Google ranked highly for candle-specific keywords.

Real Thanksgiving.com has been launched in advance of the 2010 holiday season. A companion site to Real Christmas.com and Real Halloween.com, the new site will archive Thanksgiving news, history, tradition, information and real life experiences and observations of the modern day celebration of Thanksgiving.

“We have long celebrated Thanksgiving on our Christmas venues,” noted Merry Network President Jeff Westover. “It is a festive if not less controversial holiday that kind of kicks off the celebration of Christmas. Real Thanksgiving is a natural expansion for us and we look forward to the contribution it will make to the network.”

Real Thanksgiving.com is the 21st native site of the Merry Network. In all, 35 related sites of the Merry Network now service millions of holiday celebratants on the Internet.

Cool Yule Comics has joined the Merry Network.

The strategic partnership will allow features created by Cool Yule Comics to be embedded into Merry Network websites for promotional considerations.

Cool Yule Comics has sponsored SantaUpdate.com and portions of the Merry Forums. A continual feature of Cool Yule Comics is published weekly at My Merry Christmas.

Magical Holiday Home.com is actually a new site — but it already has a dedicate core of enthusiastic users who are familiar to each other. They are coming from Organized Christmas.com, a wildly popular and well-operated Christmas site dedicated to, well, organizing Christmas in the home. Early in 2008, Organized Christmas will be closing their forums to focus on more content for other areas of their site. Magical Holiday Home will replace the forums from Organized Christmas and will likewise generate their own content via blogs set up on the domain.

The addition of MHH brings to five the total number of forums now associated with the Merry Network. We believe there is no other active community online that is as large and comprehensive as the forums that service the network overall. This addition adds a critical element of holiday celebration to our discussion areas and will help broaden the overall appeal of all network sites as a result.

DefendChristmas.com has been the most well-received new site in the Merry Network so far in 2007. We anticipated that LinkChristmas.com would be popular — and it has — simply because of the natural backlinks a directory tends to receive. But Defend Christmas has even surpassed the expectations at the directory with more than 15,000 visits in September 2007 alone.