Merry Alexa-Powered Christmas

Let Alexa be Your Holiday Helper

 

Use your Amazon Echo to Help with your Holiday Prep

We are midway through the Holiday Season, and getting down to the wire.  Last night, we lit all eight candles on the menorah, and on Sunday Night, Santa finally comes.  As with the other Holidays we've looked at, (Halloween and Thanksgiving,) your Alexa powered device can help you make your Holidays a little merrier.

Today, we're going to look at Alexa skills you can use to help you through the Holidays.  Most of these skills can be enabled by saying "Alexa, enable the [name] skill.

Holiday Cooking

We've already covered the ways Alexa can help you with your Holiday Meal Prep when we talked about an Alexa-Powered Thanksgiving. Many of the same recipe and meal planning skills can help you with your Holiday meal prep.  You can find out all about the Pie Guy skill, Betty Crocker, What's Cooking, Roast Calculator, and more in that article.  But there are a couple of helpful holiday food skills we did not cover there: Holiday Cookies, and Santa Snacks.

Holiday Cookies, of course, gives you all sorts of ideas for Holiday Cookies.  It will read you the ingredients as well as the instructions.   You can pause and/or repeat any step at any time.  And of course, you can do it all hands-free.  To enable, ask Alexa to enable the "Holiday Cookies" skill. To use, say "Alexa, ask Holiday Cookies..." or "Alexa, open Holiday Cookies.

Santa Snacks: Santa Snacks will help you find the perfect snack for Santa!  Just answer a few questions, and this skill will suggest a snack to leave for Santa Claus.

Santa-Related Alexa Skills

Santa Claus: Enable this skill, and Alexa will ask you a series of questions. Then she will tell you if you're on the Naughty or Nice list, based on your answers. This skill is fun for children and adults alike. Parents may find it especially helpful in the final days leading up to Christmas, as Alexa can help remind them they need to behave if they want to stay on the nice list.  To invoke, ask Alexa to enable the skill, then say "Alexa, open Santa Claus. Alexa, ask Santa Claus if I've been naughty or nice."

Call Santa:  This skill lets you leave a voicemail for Santa at the North Pole. When you ask Alexa to call Santa it plays a random recording that seems to be making a call to Santa, But because Santa is so busy, you get his voicemail. You can then leave a message stating that your child has been good/bad, or stating why your child should be on the good list.  (Nothing is actually recorded here, so there are no privacy risks.)

Norad Santa Tracker:  This is the familiar NORAD Santa Tracker, ported to the Alexa platform. It originally began as a telephone hotline, and of course, later moved to the web. Now, Alexa's rendition is reminiscent of the old telephone hotline.   The official description says:

On December 24th NORAD conducts a special mission tracking Santa across the globe and keeping him safe. Find out how many days are left until Santa begins his yuletide journey, follow him as he gets ready the day before his flight and hear his location as we track him across the globe on December 24th. You can also get facts from the Top-Secret Santa files. Only Santa knows when he will arrive at your house, but we do know he only arrives when children are asleep.

Find out more about how NORAD tracks Santa at https://noradsanta.org/

Bad Santa: This is more of an Alexa skill for adults, especially those in need of a good laugh.  "Ask Alexa what Bad Santa is up to and find out. Maybe he's helping the elves make toys or maybe he's making it rain at the local 'elve's club'. There's only one way to find out....so, hide your booze (or drink it) and have a good laugh!"

Santa Finder: This app is fun to use in the days leading up to Christmas.  Santa Finder will update you with what activity Santa Claus is doing every day in December until Christmas Eve.

On Christmas Eve, it acts as a Santa Tracker. Santa Finder will tell you where Santa Claus is in the world delivering presents. Simply ask Santa Finder where is Santa?

Ask Santa:  This app allows you to ask Santa questions and have him answer. It includes answers to over 100 "typical" questions, like how does Santa get in homes with no chimneys. 

"Alexa ask santa claus for help - will give a sample list of questions you can ask"

"Alexa ask santa claus for a christmas fact - will give random facts"

For a list of questions please visit www.nc-web-services.co.uk/santa

Santa Adventure: This is a text-based game, in which you attempt to find Santa's Workshop. To do so, of course, you must explore the North Pole.   It is similar to other text adventure games on Alexa, such as THe Magic Door, and is fun for kids to play.

Funny Santa: This is basically a jokes app.  To invoke it, enable the skill, then say "Alexa, ask Funny Santa to tell me a joke."  The jokes all are Holiday-themed, of course.

Drunk Santa: Another skill for the adults in the household, this app will give you a quiz to determine if you are naughty or nice.  The reviews report it is an absolutely hysterical app.  From its description:

 "Drunk Santa Claus is drinking lots of egg nog and making a list. And he is way too drunk to check the list twice. Do you want to know if you are naughty or nice? Take this quiz now to find out!

Disclaimer: This skill not suitable for all ages. Drunk Santa is recommended for adults 18 years or older. Please drink responsibly, and NEVER drink and drive."

Holiday Music Skills

This category includes both Holiday Music games and Holiday Sounds.  Of course, if you are a Prime Subscriber, Prime Music includes a plethora of Holiday Playlists.  (Try Christmas Road Trip, Holiday Party Jams, or Holiday Favorites.)  However, if you are NOT a Prime Member, you can still use Alexa for Holiday Sounds.  These skills do not require a Prime Account to enable.

iHeart Santa - Ask Santa for Christmas Music: Play stations like North Pole Radio hosted by Santa himself and iHeartChristmas Radio, plus other popular Christmas music stations from iHeartRadio. Santa Claus will help you find the Christmas music you love, all commercial-free.

"Like reindeer jokes, silly songs and Christmas fun? Great! Just respond “Yes” to start North Pole Radio. If that’s not your jam, don’t fret! Just keep talking to Santa and he will find the perfect station for you. Simply reply “yes” or “no” to his questions."

Classical Christmas: This skill plays Classical Christmas Music, as the name implies.  To invoke, say "Alexa ask Classical Christmas to play Christmas music."

Tracks include:

1. Ding dong merrily on high
2. Rudolph the red nosed reindeer
3. God rest ye merry gentlemen
4. Good king Wenceslas
5. Hark the herald angels sing
6. Jingle Bells
7. Joy to the world
8. We Three Kings
9. O come all ye faithful
10. O little town of Bethlehem
11. Silent night
12. The first noel
13. What child is this
14. O holy night
15. Once in royal David’s city
16. We wish you a merry Christmas

Holiday Music Quiz:  This is a "Name That Tune" style game, quizzing you on Holiday Music.  Contains a mix of newer tunes and old standards.

Holiday Song Quiz: Another Name That Tune style game. From its description: "Guess the correct song title and artist. Challenge your friends and family in live competitions or compete against music fans across the country! Master holiday music from across the decades."

Christmas Sounds: This skill is specifically designed to provide background music, with a mix of Holiday Music and Holiday Sounds. It will keep on playing until you tell Alexa to "Stop."  

 

Other Holiday-Related Skills

 

Holiday Chill: The holidays are stressful. With this Alexa skill, Jack Frost is here to spread some holiday chill. Zen-out with a Jack Frost guided meditation session or relax with the sounds of winter. This skill is great for relaxing after a bout of Holiday Stress, and is a fun way to ease the stress.

Holiday Hacks: This is a flash-briefing that gives you Holiday facts and tips.  The briefing includes "lifehacks" to help make your Holidays less stressful.

Winter Holiday Facts: This skill will give you an interesting fact about the winter holidays (Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc). According to the description: "These facts are sure to be great conversation points at your next holiday party!"  It is one of the few "Holiday" Skills to include holidays OTHER than just Christmas.

 Holiday Traditions Around the World: This skill will tell you a random holiday tradition from around the world. Just ask Alexa to tell you a holiday tradition!


 

 Holiday Showdown:  This is a multi-player text-based game.   From the description:

To begin using Holiday Showdown, launch the skill with the invocation name "holiday showdown." You will be given a welcome message and be placed in the main menu. Here, you may request a brief "tutorial" or "start a game." 

 Tutorial: If you choose to start a game, you will be asked about the number of players, of which you may choose two, three, or four. Finally, you will be asked each player's name and the game will begin.

 Each player will proceed to take their turn which they can end with the phrase "end turn," or something to that effect.

During a player's turn they can choose one category to upgrade and one action to perform. The upgrade categories are: items, store, and advertising. Item upgrades improve your cookies per turn, store upgrades improve your multiplier, and advertisement upgrades improve your chance of having successful advertising (which also affects your multiplier). 

 Players may also perform an action each turn, of which there are two: advertise and sabotage. Advertisement is based on your advertisement level and it affects your multiplier for the turn (either positively or negatively). Sabotage allows you to negatively affect another player of your choosing; however, you are assigned a random sabotage type at the beginning of each round which may not work on opponents with item/store levels too low. 

 The first player to reach 150 cookies wins. If multiple players reach over 150 cookies during the same turn, the player with the most cookies wins.

Christmas Movie Guessing Game:  The skill gives a short description of a christmas movie and gives you four chances to guess the correct movie. You will get a hint if you guess wrong.

Christmas Vacation Trivia: This game test's the user's knowledge of the movie, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. The game asks the user 5 questions from a pool of 20. The user should say the number of the answer they want to select. At the end, the final score is given.

Christmas Countdown Checklist: Another app that purports to help alleviate Holiday stress, this skill tells you how many days it is before Christmas. It also reminds you what you need to do each day to prepare for Christmas. "Christmas Countdown Checklist is filled with holiday planning ideas that helps you get ready for Christmas easily and stress-free!"

Christmas Kindness:  Christmas Kindness is an Alexa skill that provides you with a daily suggested act of kindness. Use this skill to be inspired to act kindly this holiday season.

Christmas Radio Shows:  Are you interested in old-time radio Christmas shows? Rely on Radio Christmas Shows for a variety of old-time radio Christmas shows in the golden age of radio. Information source: Archive.org.

Elf Trivia:  A trivia game for the movie elf. Try to see how many correct answers you're able to get. It's great fun for Elf lovers!

The Head Elf Hotline:  This skill gives you and your children a direct line to Santa's Head Elf, at any time. According to the description: "This Christmas you won't need to send a letter to get your messages to Santa, our new Amazon Echo skill lets your talk directly with his head elf any time, day or night.  For example, say, ""Alexa, tell Head Elf that Charlie has been naughty"" and you'll receive a message back from Santa HQ.  If you say, ""Alexa, tell Head Elf that Sam has been good."", congratulations may be in store. "

Santa's Revenge:  This is another fun Christmas-themed game for adults.  The description says: "Ahhhh, the perils of being Santa Claus. This year, the U.S. military is attempting to stop Santa from delivering his precious gifts to all the boys and girls due to Santa being behind on his taxes. Santa don't play that.

Voice control Santa and his 300 foot robotic reindeer and save Christmas!"

A Christmas Story Trivia:  This is a trivia game. "Test your knowledge of the movie A Christmas Story! Think you know the most about the Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and "this thing which tells time"? Enable this skill to find out!"

Prime Holiday Movies:

Although Amazon Prime Video does not have the best selection of Holiday Movies, there are a few worth watching. And if you have a Fire TV Stick (or other Fire TV device,) you can ask Alexa to play the movie, without having to fiddle with any sort of remote.  I watched my favorite Holiday Special on Prime last night: Mr Magoo's Christmas Carol.  Unfortunately, Alexa was unable to find this, despite the fact I KNEW it was available on Prime Video. I had to search manually, then add Mr. Magoo to my watchlist.  This is a forgotten classic, and if you haven't seen it yet, I encourage you to watch it.  But I had better luck having Alexa find some of the movies listed below. It's nice to be able to watch a movie from beginning to end, pause when necessary, and control the volume, all using just my voice.

Also available on Prime Video:

• The Holiday
• Christmas with the Kranks
• Home for Christmas
• The Year without a Santa Claus
• Holiday Inn
• Christmas Cartoon Classics
• Scrooge
• All I Want for Christmas is You
• Holiday
• Merry Friggin Christmas (Robin Williams' last movie)
• Miracle on 34th St
• Christmas in Connecticut
• And many more

And Alexa can find these if you ask her to "Search for Holiday Movies on Prime Video" as well.  Of course, additional Holiday Favorites (like Elf and The Grinch) are available to rent.

Summary:

This week, we looked at how to use Alexa to make your Holidays less stressful. Alexa can help you plan, help entertain you, calm you down, and give you a soundtrack by which to do it all.  Besides the many Prime Music Playlists Alexa can play, there are also free skills that will play holiday music and sounds, all without a Prime membership.  

Alexa can help your children track Santa, both before and after the holiday.  In the days leading up to Christmas, Alexa can help your children talk to Santa or his elves, answer their questions, and even tell them if they're on the Naughty or Nice List.  And for the adults, Bad Santa (or Drunk Santa) can help you similarly.

And of course, all of the cooking and meal planning skills we used for Thanksgiving can help during the Winter Holidays too.  Alexa's timer and notification functions can be especially valuable during the holiday season. And if you shop on Amazon, Alexa can place voice orders for you, and even help you keep track of when those gifts are delivered.  During times of peak havoc, Alexa can even take you through a guided meditation to help you chill out.

There are probably about 300 Holiday related skills in the Alexa store. We only covered about a dozen of the more useful and popular skills in this article. But of course, you can find many more in the skills section of Amazon.com.  

Do you have a favorite Alexa skill that we left out? How do you use Alexa during the Holidays?  Let us know in the comments.  And to all of our readers, have a Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Festivus, Happy New Year, Happy Solstice, or Happy Whatever Holiday you celebrate!  We hope you find a shiny new Alexa-powered device under your own tree this year!