Smart speakers are useful all year round, but even more so at Christmas. Alexa tricks and routines can make life a little easier or more magical, and keep the kids entertained while you get on with all of your other Christmas tasks.
1 Ask Alexa How Many Days Until Christmas
One of the simplest but most effective holiday tricks you can do with Alexa is to ask how many days there are until Christmas. As you might expect, Alexa will respond by telling you the number of days left until the big day.
However, that’s not where things end. After Alexa has told you how many days until Christmas, you’ll get a message from Santa himself. Each day the message is different. For example, today Santa told us that Mrs. Clause had put the mistletoe up.
My kids absolutely love this and ask Alexa how many days until Christmas every day so they can hear the latest Santa update.
2 Create a Routine to Turn On Your Christmas Lights
Combine Alexa with a compatible smart plug, and you can turn on your Christmas lights with just your voice. The best part is that you can create a routine that’s triggered by a phrase of your choosing, so you can pick something festive to say that will light up your tree as if by magic.
In past years I’ve used every phrase I can think of from the fairly obvious “Alexa, it’s Christmas!” to the slightly unwieldy “Alexa, it’s the most wonderful time of the year!” to trigger the lights. This year I’ve gone for “Alexa, jingle bells,” as it’s easy for the kids to remember and they love turning the lights on and off by asking Alexa.
First of all, you’ll need a smart plug that’s been paired with Alexa. Once you’ve got this set up, you’re ready to create your Christmas lights routine.
Open the Alexa app and tap “More” at the bottom of the screen. Select “Routines.” Tap the “+” (plus) button in the top right of the screen.
Tap “Add an Event” and select “Voice.” Enter the phrase you want to say to turn on the lights, such as “Merry Christmas.” Tap “Next” to save your phrase.
Tap “Add an Action” and select “Smart Home.” Select “Plugs” and choose the smart plug you want to control.
Choose “Toggle On or Off” to use the same phrase to turn the lights on or off. Tap “Next” and then “Save” at the bottom of the screen.
After a minute or so, your routine will be ready, and you’ll be able to turn your lights on and off with your custom phrase.
3 Create a Routine to Play Your Christmas Playlist
You can also create an Alexa routine to play your Christmas playlist. As with the Christmas lights routine, you can choose your own custom phrase that will trigger the routine. You can make this phrase as festive as you want so that your music starts playing when you say things such as “Alexa, bring us some figgy pudding,” or “Alexa, deck the halls.”
You’ll need to have a Christmas playlist created in one of the music streaming services that you have linked to Alexa. Open the Alexa app and tap “More” at the bottom of the screen. Select “Routines” and tap the “+” (plus) icon at the top of the screen.
Tap “Add an Event” and choose “Voice.” Enter the phrase that you want to say to start your Christmas playlist and tap “Next.”
Tap “Add an Action” and choose “Music & Podcasts.” Under “Play” type “Shuffle” followed by the name of your playlist. For example, you might type “Shuffle Ultimate Christmas playlist.”
To select a provider, check “Provider” and select the provider from the options. Tap “Next” and select “Save” to save your routine.
If all of this seems like too much work, or you don’t have your own Christmas playlist, say “Alexa, play Christmas music” and Alexa will choose the music for you.
You can combine this routine with the routine above to create a single routine that will turn on your lights and play your Christmas playlist. All you need to do is tap “Add Another Action” in the “Alexa Will” section to add actions for both your lights and your playlist.
4 Ask Alexa for Christmas Recipes
It wouldn’t be Christmas without the food. Thankfully, Alexa has plenty of recipes on hand, so you can always find the perfect things to make.
Your requests can be as broad or as specific as you want. For example, if you’re completely stuck for inspiration, you can save “Alexa, give me some holiday recipes” to get some festive ideas. If you have more of an idea of exactly what you want, you can narrow things down with requests such as “Alexa, give me some holiday side dish recipes” or “Alexa, give me some Christmas dessert recipes.”
Alexa will give you some options to choose from, and you’ll get step-by-step instructions for the recipe you select. You can even ask for suggestions for a well-earned drink once your work in the kitchen is done.
One of the worries when shopping online close to Christmas is that your orders may not arrive in time for the big day. If you’ve made purchases on Amazon, you can use Alexa to help track your parcels, so you have one less thing to worry about. All you need to do is say “Alexa, where’s my stuff?” to hear an update about any upcoming deliveries.
Alexa can also provide alerts when packages are out for delivery or have been delivered, but there are some important settings you might want to tweak if you’ve ordered things for other people in your household. Alexa can say or show the titles of the items you’ve ordered, which isn’t always ideal if they’re surprise gifts for someone else. You can turn this option off to keep deliveries a surprise (you may want to hide your orders, too).
Open the Alexa app and tap “More” at the bottom of the screen. Tap “Settings” and select “Notifications.”
Tap “Amazon Shopping,” scroll down, and toggle on the “Out For Delivery” and “Delivered” notifications. Under “Say Or Show Item Titles” toggle “For Items In Delivery Updates” off to ensure that none of the products you’ve ordered are ever announced or displayed by name.
Some other delivery services, such as UPS, offer their own Alexa skills that you can use to track parcels bought from other retailers.
6 Get Festive With the Santa Claus Skill
If you really want to keep your kids entertained in the build-up to Christmas, try the Santa Claus skill. This is a free skill that’s packed with Santa fun. Some of the features are locked behind a subscription, but there’s more than enough in the free version to keep your kids happy.
To enable the skill, say “Alexa, ask Santa.” Your kids can then use any of the following phrases for free:
- Alexa, ask Santa to tell a story: Santa will read a short story.
- Alexa, ask Santa for the news: Santa will give the North Pole headlines.
- Alexa, ask Santa for the weather: Santa will give a weather report for the North Pole.
- Alexa, ask Santa to sing: Santa will sing an original Christmas song.
- Alexa, ask Santa to meditate: Santa will help you through some guided breathing.
- Alexa, ask Santa what to watch: Santa will provide some ideas for Christmas movies.
- Alexa, ask Santa to play carols: Santa will play some classic Christmas carols.
- Alexa, ask Santa for a joke: Santa will tell a festive joke.
- Alexa, ask Santa about his reindeer: Santa will give you information about one of his reindeer.
- Alexa, ask Santa for the time: Santa will tell you the time.
- Alexa, ask Santa for his location: find out where Santa currently is.
- Alexa, ask Santa to beatbox: Santa drops some beats.
- Alexa, ask Santa to do yoga: Santa will give some yoga instructions.
- Alexa, ask Santa for my elf name: Santa will generate a random elf name.
- Alexa, ask Santa for the date: Santa will give the date.
- Alexa, ask Santa for a fact: Santa will give a Christmas fact.
- Alexa, ask Santa for fashion advice: Santa will tell you what to wear.
- Alexa, ask Santa for ambient sounds: Santa will play three minutes of Christmas sounds.
- Alexa, ask Santa to fart: Santa will let one fly.
- Alexa, ask Santa to burp: Santa’s mince pies will repeat on him.
If you pay for the subscription, you’ll get additional features such as Santa workouts, an animated musical, and sleigh rides.
Your Alexa smart speaker can really come into its own during the festive period. There are plenty of tricks to keep the kids entertained, but also some useful features for the grown-ups, too. Creating your own routine to play Christmas music and turn on the Christmas lights just with your voice is something that will never get old.
