6 Fun Ways to Brighten up your Holiday with NexiGo!

By: Daniel Perry | December 19, 2022

While the holiday season is a great chance to spend more time with loved ones, it can also be stressful and busy. That’s why it’s essential to find ways to make the season more enjoyable, in ways big and small. With all the hustle and bustle the holidays will bring, it can be easy to forget to take a break and actually have fun, but that is what this time of year is supposed to be all about. After all that work you put into buying everyone’s gifts and making special meals for your family, you may have overlooked an important element — there are still activities to plan!

Never fret, we have you covered. We are bringing you a list of six different things you can do this holiday season to add a little extra cheer to your life. Take a little time off from your busy day and throw a virtual Christmas party. Start a family game night online to allow people who are not in town to join — or combine a few ideas together to make a new holiday tradition for the whole family to enjoy!

1.  Holiday-Themed Zoom Backgrounds

While Zoom does offer the ability to use virtual backgrounds, they don’t provide many built-in options — and those options never seem to change. If you want your backgrounds to keep up with the season, you will have to just upload them yourself. Luckily, this is very easy since you can find a ton of great resources for free seasonal backgrounds out there, like this one here.

Represent the season with a friendly snowman, spice the holiday up with a jazzy Santa, or celebrate diversity with Hanukkah or Kwanza themes. There are no wrong answers, just let your imagination and creativity go wild. And if you’re always in meetings like me, do what I’m doing this year and make your own “Zoom background advent calendar” and put up a new background every day of the season! If nothing else, it’s a conversation starter.

2. Virtual Christmas Party

Unfortunately, with COVID still lingering, many places are hesitant to roll out full in-person gatherings in the ways of old, like the traditional Christmas party. And while it’s nice not having to deal with the usual shenanigans that break out after a few cups of eggnog (looking at you, Phil), I don’t think anyone wants to miss the opportunity to see their boss dancing around with a lampshade on their head. Therefore, we may have to get a little creative with it.

So if your workplace is also skipping the typical Christmas party this year, set up a virtual one! Sites like this one offer tons of fun ideas for games and activities that everyone can take part in. You’ll be amazed to find how quickly the conversation gets going, and how late you end up chatting when you only planned to be there for an hour.

Set up a fun quiz around everyone’s favorite movie or show to see who the biggest superfan is, host an ugly sweater contest, organize a company-wide Secret Santa gift exchange, or create your own game! You never know, you might just come up with the next TikTok trend.

3. Modern Secret Santa

One of the best parts of the holiday season in my book is Secret Santa. Learning more about your co-workers and finding something special that will bring a smile to their faces is one of the most rewarding parts of the process. Plus, it gives you something fun to think about and plan for at a time of year when stress levels are high.

At most places I have worked at, the real fun is getting to see them open the present — but that’s often done away from the office so you never get to see their reaction. This is a perfect excuse to have a Secret Santa Zoom party!

With a virtual Secret Santa party, everyone gets to see each other’s reactions, plus it gives you another opportunity to do something fun with the team away from the office. Plan some of the activities we pointed out in the previous entry and you have yourself an official party. And even though they may not know who got them that Beanie Baby from 1997 that they’ve been dying for, you will know — and that’s the real magic behind Secret Santa.

4. Christmas Morning with Everyone!

Waking up on Christmas morning, running downstairs to see what Santa left under the tree, and getting to spend time with family are all core memories for many of us. But with the world’s current state of affairs, making memories like these will be more difficult this holiday season.

However, you don’t have to let the world stop you from making the best holiday memories for you and your family. All you need is a webcam and a simple setup, and all your loved ones can be there with you on Christmas morning. Just have everyone place a webcam in a good vantage point where you can get the whole family in the shot, and then set up a Zoom call so they all can join!

And while there’s always at least one who can’t make it to Christmas every year, maybe this way, they’ll finally be able to celebrate with everyone. Spend Christmas morning talking with the people you care about while the kids are enjoying their new gifts. So even when your family is miles apart, you can still keep the old traditions alive with some help from new technologies.

5. Virtual Caroling

When I was younger, I always went out caroling with my school’s choir groups. It seemed like a bit of an old-fashioned activity to me, but it was still lots of fun to spread that holiday cheer through song.

Though this may seem like an outdated activity, here’s one of the best things about the internet: it can breathe new life into old pursuits, and caroling is no exception. There are many resources available, like this one, that take this old-fashioned activity and make it fresh and exciting with a virtual caroling party.

Plan a set of songs, find the time when your crew can make it happen, do some practicing, and then put on your own Christmas caroling show! Depending on how seriously you want to take this, there are even paid options available where you can purchase musical arrangements and step-by-step instructions for your carolers, helping you make this experience as simple or extravagant as you want it to be.

6. Family Game Night

While free time may be limited this time of year, kids can lose interest fast if you don’t have a plan. Luckily, video games are an excellent way to keep the family entertained while you schedule the rest of the festivities. But you still want to be able to be part of the fun as well, so that is where you can get creative.

This holiday season, make family game night a more interactive experience. Rather than playing on an actual board in the living room, take your game of Monopoly or Risk online. Many popular board games have a holiday-themed version, so you can play Operation on the Abominable Snowman from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, or a game of Clue to find out who caught the Grinch trying to steal Christmas. And since they’re online, you can play from a laptop in the kitchen or office where you’re working.

Alternatively, there are tons of holiday-themed video games for the whole family to play. Most major games get involved in some way, from Fortnite and Apex with their focus on massive multiplayer content, to games like Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing that feature in-game events, they all try to add more value to their content by bringing some virtual holiday cheer.

Either way, a family game night can be a great way to destress and relax this time of year. And no matter what games you choose, playing them online will make it easier for everyone to get involved, even if they’re away from home.

Happy Holidays from NexiGo!