Best Apps to Get You Into The Christmas Spirit

Christmas is here, and so are apps that help tablet and smartphone owners with their last-minute shopping and their budgets or simply get them into the Christmas Spirit. Google Play and Apple app stores are loaded with thousands of Christmas-themed apps.

Christmas(R) is a free iOS app that has a Christmas countdown and Christmas themes, jigsaw puzzles, emoticons, and wallpaper, as well as holiday ringtones available for purchase. Another app that gets you into the Christmas mood is Santa’s Christmas Village, which has festive songs, pictures and activities.

There are hundreds of apps that let your sing along to Christmas carols. There’s online streaming app Christmas Radio, which has over 50 stations that play Christmas songs of some of your favorite artists.

For your Christmas dishes, BBC’s Good Food Festive Recipes app offers more than 200 free recipes with step-by-step instructions and nutritional information, although additional curated cookbooks are only available for purchase. For your drinks, there’s Christmas Recipes, which claims to offer the best recipes from winter wonderland.

If you’re too tired to do some real cooking, there’s Christmas Cookie Maker, which lets you design their own Christmas cookie with a variety of toppings to spread that holiday cheer.

The Christmas Tree Maker app allows you to decorate a virtual tree to your heart’s content and post the tree in Facebook or e-mail it to a loved one. Don’t overdo the ornaments though because while the app is free, many of the options are in-app purchases.

For kids and young at heart who want to track Santa Claus, the NORAD Tracks Santa helps you keep tab by following Santa’s coordinates using high-tech systems like radar, satellites, Santa Cams and fighter jets. Aside from an enhanced GPS, the site contains a Kids Countdown Village that has Christmas games and activities.