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6 Fun Ways to Get Christmas Cheer with Tech!

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If you’re thinking that Christmas and tech go together like egg nog and salami, well then you need to check out these tech tools. Tech can bring magic to the season and some fun too! Find out if you’re naughty or nice, track Santa’s journey, and play fun Christmas games.

Santa fun with Tech

Naughty or Nice?

Not sure if you’ve been naughty or nice? Let tech help you figure that out before Santa arrives. Hey, there’s still time to be nice before Christmas!

Portable North Pole

You can make cute videos with a personalized Santa message at Portable North Pole (PNP) in English, Spanish or French.  Santa will say your name, show your photos and talk about your good deeds this year.

PNP Santa Video

Santa has videos for adults and kids, whether you’ve been naughty or nice. You need to sign up using your email, Facebook or Google account.

Enter the first name of the person you want to make the video for. You can check to make sure Santa is pronouncing the name properly.

Add details, answer some questions to guide Santa to make the video personal and finalize your choices. You can upload photos of the person and the gift they want. You can also upload a picture of yourself so they know who was kind enough to send the video.

The video is free and paid options are available that let you add more photos, get a longer video, have more personalization, and download the video.

You can share your PNP video with others using social media and email. Check out mine at Carolyn’s Portable North Pole video.

Amazon Echo

Alexa Santa's HelperAlexa, Amazon’s voice assistant for the Echo, added a new skill last week called Santa’s Helper. You can ask Alexa to find out whether you’re on the Naughty or Nice list, where Santa is and more.

Open the Alexa app on your phone, go to Skills and enable the Santa’s Helper skill. Then you can ask your Echo questions such as:

  • Alexa, ask Santa if I’m on the Nice list.
  • Alexa, ask Santa for a Christmas fact.
  • Alexa, ask Santa for a Christmas joke.
  • Alexa, ask Santa where he is.
  • Alexa, ask Santa to read “The Night Before Christmas.”

Tracking Santa

NORAD Tracks Santa

NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, once again will help you track Santa across the globe. Celebrate the 60th anniversary of NORAD tracking Santa by visiting the NORAD website and using the free NORAD Santa apps.

The website is available in eight different languages and includes plenty of activities to keep you busy as you await Santa’s arrival. Before Christmas Eve you can see the countdown to Santa’s journey, play games, watch movies, read books, and learn the history of NORAD.

On Christmas Eve you can watch as Santa makes his way around the world.

See Santa’s journey:

You can also download the free NORAD Santa tracking apps:

Google Santa Tracker

Google puts its maps to good use by tracking Santa across the globe. You can see where Santa is on Christmas Eve by visiting the Google Santa Tracker website and apps.

Visit Santa’s Village on the website and to learn about holiday traditions around the world, play games, watch videos, learn to code and more. A new activity is revealed each day in December until Christmas.

Google Santa's Village

You can also track Santa using the free Google Santa Tracker App for Android and Google Santa Tracker app for iPhone and iPad.

Christmas Apps

A Call From Santa!

Give your children reasons to behave well with A Call From Santa! app. This app gives you unlimited free (pretend) calls from Santa. You can have your child mentioned by age and gender, and have Santa give the reason for the call, such as naughty behavior.

The app doesn’t actually place phone calls, instead it plays recorded voice messages from Santa. Your child can also leave a message for Santa with a Christmas wish list.

This video shows how A Call from Santa! works:

https://youtu.be/8OQX2kgG3xg

The free version of the app has advertisements or you can pay to remove the ads.

ElfYourself

Have you ever wondered what you’d look like as an elf? Did you ever wish you could do cool dance moves? ElfYourself is the app for you!

Add photos to this app to become an elf starring in your own dance video. You can add up to five people as elves and choose which dance video you want to appear in.

After the app creates the dance video, you can share the video on social media or email it as a holiday greeting.

ElfYourself is free and you can purchase additional dance videos.

Hungry Santa

How did Santa get a belly like a bowl full of jelly? By eating a lot of sweets!

Hungry Santa is a game that lets you fill up Santa’s tummy with sweets and treats.

Move Santa around so he can gobble up tasty donuts, candy canes. cookies, gingerbread men and more. Be careful though, Santa is not a fan of broccoli. Santa doesn’t seem to be a healthy eater.

See how the game is played:

This game is a silly, fun and funny way to pass the time until Santa arrives. You can compare your scores with others around the world.

This free app is available:

Your Thoughts

Have you ever used these fun tech tools at Christmas? Which are your favorites? Do you have any suggestions for fun ways to celebrate the holiday?

Share your thoughts in the Comments section below!

 

 

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Comments

  1. Harleena Singh says

    Hi Carolyn,

    Always love your Christmas tech posts 🙂

    Yes, they always give a feel of Christmas, which literally is just a few days to go – so one can visit all the sites and links you mentioned in this post. I still remember the North Pole one and receive email reminders, right from Santa – all thanks to the time when you’d shared it the first time here and even sent a greeting – what fun!

    I still have to check out the others mentioned here, though NORAD I’ve seen earlier – must rush before it’s too late!!

    Thanks for sharing it with us, and wishing you and yours a very Happy Christmas as well. Have a nice week ahead 🙂

  2. Yashraj Kakkad says

    Hi Carolyn,

    I really liked the idea of Portable North Pole video for our friends and family. Anyone would feel privileged to see a video made especially for him/her, showcasing the good times! 😉

    Just opened Google Santa Tracker and it says just two days for Santa to take off! I will be opening this webpage on the Christmas Eve to know what’s gonna be displayed.

    And yes, I am also thinking to try the ElfYourself thingy! Looks cool!

    The article was creative indeed! Thank you! 🙂

  3. arun says

    awesome,
    Really Great apps about christmas i will also use 2-3 apps. its a fun of combination of christmas and tech tnaks for sharing. wishing you and yours a very Happy Christmas

  4. Favour says

    Christmas is Here again!! …Hurray!!

    Can’t wait to turn myself into an ELF…… Off to Download the App..

    Thanks for sharing…

    • Carolyn Nicander Mohr says

      Hello Favour, Welcome to The Wonder of Tech! Yea! You seem to have lots of Christmas cheer already but these tech tools can help even more.

      I hope you have fun dancing as an elf. If you post the video on YouTube, be sure to come back here and share the link so we can share your joy.

      Merry Christmas, Favour!

  5. Nadya says

    Hi Carolyn,

    Your post has created me Christmas mood 🙂 I’ve never used Christmas applications.I need to try!

    Merry Christmas !!!!

  6. Barry says

    Hi,

    Great post, I guess gadgets are really wonderful things to use in celebrations and also it can be used to gifting purpose. You’ve shared great tech items here.

    Thanks

  8. tonya says

    great post thanks for the sharing really liked the idea of Portable North Pole video for our friends and family. Anyone would feel privileged to see a video made especially for him/her, showcasing the good times! 😉

    • Carolyn Nicander Mohr says

      Hi Tonya, I’m so glad you enjoyed the Portable North Pole videos. They sure are fun! You’re right, customizing these videos makes them seem so much more personal.

      Thanks for visiting and taking the time to comment, Tonya.

  9. Chetan Gupta says

    Hi Carolyn

    I enjoyed a lot while reading this article and also when I was celebrating Christmas with my friends.

    Thanks for sharing such a nice article about fun ways to celebrate Christmas. 😀

    I and my few friends enjoyed a lot on Christmas and celebrated it with so much happiness.

    One of my friend became Santa and given gifts to many of the friends.

    Thanks once again for the post.

    & Belated Merry Christmas. 😀