A New Year's Eve or Christmas countdown on the TV is a free board that counts down to the moment, then takes over the whole screen for it: the last seconds as big as the TV allows, then your words with sparks rising behind them. Set the moment from your phone, switch on the big finish, and the board does the rest.
Add the wifi with a code to join it, a fire on the screen and the holiday colors, and the TV in the corner becomes the thing everyone gathers round at five to midnight.
The countdown, and its big finish
Pick the day and the time, in the board's own time zone, and the countdown says how long is left the way you'd say it: in days while there are days, then hours and minutes, then seconds. Switch on Big finish and, ten seconds before the moment, the countdown fills the screen. At zero it shows your message, "It's time" unless you write your own, with sparks rising behind it, then hands the board back after anywhere from 10 to 120 seconds, as you choose. There is no sound, so it never talks over the room.
If somebody opens the board halfway through the big finish, it picks up where the finish is rather than starting again, and an alert you put up still shows over it.
Christmas, a day at a time
For the weeks before, show it as Days and the countdown counts the days on the calendar rather than stretches of twenty-four hours, then the hours on the day itself. Or make it repeat daily, to the moment the lights go on every evening, say: once one evening's moment has come, it counts to the next, with your message showing for a while after each.
Holiday colors that come and go by themselves
The board has a Christmas theme, deep pine with warm light. Rather than switching it on in December and remembering to switch it off in January, give the board a schedule rule with dates: from the first of December to the day after Christmas, show the Christmas theme. It arrives on the first, leaves by itself after Christmas, and does the same next year without anyone touching it.
A fire on the screen
A video tile can loop something warm all evening. Its settings offer a few to start from, fireplace and snowfall among them, or paste any video or playlist link. It plays muted, as browsers require, and keeps playing on a TV left on all night.
The wifi for everyone
Put the network on the board and it shows a code a phone's camera reads to join, so nobody spends the last hour of the year spelling out a password. The wifi guide covers the code, open networks and taking it off the screen when the party ends.
One night, one pass
The countdown, its big finish, the wifi, the video and the holiday theme are all on the free plan. For the photos your guests take and every other premium widget, an Event Pass is $6 once for 7 days, with nothing to cancel afterward. The party guide has the rest of the evening: guests' photos and messages, a poll, and what happens to it all after the party.
A board worth copying
Pick "Party night" when you make the board, set its countdown to midnight with the big finish on, and give the board the Christmas theme: the wifi and its code in the top corner, the clock and the countdown beside them, the photos and your guests' messages underneath. The board below is that one, in the last seconds of the year. The Photos widget is part of Pro and the Event Pass. On the free plan, the Image widget goes where the Photos widget is.
The party guide walks through that layout tile by tile, and the layouts guide has every other starting point.