How to Use Technology to Enjoy the Holidays Even More

Many people have a love/hate relationship with technology. But can you really use it to make your holidays better? Maybe. Let's take a look at how you can use various tech this holiday season.

Many people have a love/hate relationship with technology. But can you really use it to make your holidays better? Maybe. Let's take a look at how you can use various tech this holiday season.

Get Together

Like last year, you may have loved ones who, for one reason or another, are unable to celebrate in person. Tech to the rescue! There are several apps you can use to get together. We're all pretty much experts on Zoom at this point, but that doesn't mean it's not a great tool for getting together during the holidays. Share your decorations or the roaring fire in the fireplace as your backdrop, or use a fun holiday image for your background with the green screen tool.

If Apple is your tool of choice, Facetime is the best app for hanging out. It's available on the iPhone, iPad, iPod, and even the Mac. Those of you who have bought into home automation can use tools like Google Nest to video chat with your friends and family. Prefer Amazon to Google? No worries. Alexa has partnered with Facebook Portal to provide video hangouts. Last but certainly not least, you can always go old-school with Skype.

Quality Time

Playing off the video chat services, add an element of nostalgia and schedule a holiday movie or show-watching date with your friends and family. Teleparty (the old Netflix Party), Hulu Watch Party, Disney+ GroupWatch, Prime Video Watch Party, and other third-party apps make watching TV and movies together something you can do from afar.

Stay on Track

With so many seasonal festivities, keep track of everything with a shared family calendar. Regardless of which tool you use--Windows, Apple, Android--you can create a calendar with the kids' concerts, hubby's office party, the community potluck, and any other event you've got happening.

Get in the Spirit

Are you having a hard time getting into the holiday spirit? How about a few tunes? Tools like Spotify and Pandora have been around for a while now and during that time they both have created their own holiday playlists in just about any genre you can think of. Country, Rock, Punk, Pop... you name it, they've got a playlist for it. (Head over to our Cafe@Home for the Holidays for a smattering of what Spotify has to offer with our CoffeeAM holiday playlist choices.) If you don't like any of the standard playlists, look through some of the user-generated playlists or just create your own.

Save Time

Combine online shopping with pickup or delivery, and you can save a ton of time this year. Just about every store is offering pickup including Walmart, Target, Kohl's, Best Buy, Kroger, Lowe's, The Home Depot, Publix, REI, and more. Add to that all the stores online that simply deliver like Amazon, eBay, and CoffeeAM (of course) and you would never have to step foot in a store this season.

Share

Social media apps make it easy to share all aspects of our lives with each other, including the holidays. Use livestreams on Facebook, YouTube, even Tik Tok to share neighborhood lights, holiday parades, community concerts, and any other events happening around you.

So, you see, whether you can get together in person or have to do so virtually, there are still plenty of ways to keep in touch.