7 Ways to Enjoy Free Online Holiday Fun
Posted by Amanda on December 4, 2013
So much of our lives has “gone digitalâ€. While I like to keep my life as un-digital as a blogger possibly can (it’s a struggle), I do think there is some fun to be had by adding in a little digital around the holidays.
There’s plenty of free online holiday music, games, and more to help you enjoy the holidays! Here are 7 ways you can do just that.
Free Online Holiday Fun
- Skype-in Loved Ones Who Can’t Make it to the Dinner Table: I have had several readers over the last year or so tell me that they Skype in a loved one who cannot make it to a family holiday feast. What a neat idea! Granted, they won’t be able to smell grandma’s cooking or taste any of the delights, but they will be able to see people at the table (limited to straight forward, a little to the left, and a little to the right) and join in on the conversations.
- Listen to Free Online Holiday Music: How about adding some holiday music to your festivities this year? Or when you are in the kitchen, baking five dozen cookies (I think my grandmother bakes about 12 dozen, whew!)? Pandora offers free Christmas stations you can listen to on your computer. Live365 offers the same. Be sure to do a search in Amazon.com for “free holiday musicâ€, and you are bound to come across several free downloads (they are also offering 25 days of free holiday music).
- Write Santa an Email: If you’d rather send a letter via email instead of mail this year with your child, then here is your connection to the North Pole. Just sign-up for a free Northpole.com account and you can send an email to Santa, and sign-up to get Santa to send your child an e-card on their birthday. This website also has some cute activities for kids. Here is another website where you can email Santa with a guaranteed response.
- Create Free Holiday Family Collages Online: PicMonkey is a great, free, editing tool for a photo or for a collage. You don’t even need to sign up for an account (if you don’t sign up for an account, you will need to make sure you save each photo or collage creation to your computer as you will lose your work when you leave this website). Some editing tools and graphic embellishments are only offered for premium members, but most are not. For example, you can add a frost border, various texts and overlays, stars, banners, etc. Why not get everyone together at your holiday feast, take a photo, edit and send it out? Or you could create a lovely photo of yourself and your family and send it to everyone as a holiday greeting.
- Countdown ‘Til Christmas: Do you like counting down the days until Christmas? Or do you have children who would love this? There are various online countdown clocks, some that you can embed in a website (like above), and others for your desktop. There’s also a free app for that: Android Christmas Countdown and iPhone Christmas Countdown.
- Track Santa’s Whereabouts:
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) is the official Santa Tracker, and they have been so since 1955. December 1st they started the countdown until Christmas; check back on December 24th for all the action. Keep your eye out for Google Maps who will track Santa using their software on Christmas Eve. - Play Free Online Holiday Games:
There are lots of fun Christmas games to play online. Even the elves have come out with their own mischievous games to keep kids (and adults!) entertained. There are lots of free online Hanukkah games as well!
How do you add digital into your holidays?
More Holiday Fun
Check out today's hottest holiday Lightning Deals. Hurry, they change fast and sell out quickly!
Lots of good tips and links. Thanks.
We have Pandora on several of our electronics components. I always like tuning in to the Christmas stations at this time of year. I’m listening to “Charlie Brown’s Christmas Time is Here” right now.
We also used to track Santa on Christmas Eve on Norad, but our son has apparently outgrown Santa.