Tis’ the season, the halls are decked, and your friends and family will soon gather in your home to celebrate the holidays. Besides the greenery, cocktails, and a stellar festive menu, what else is there to set the mood for a perfect holiday party setting? How about a classic holiday movie or virtual fire crackling in the background as added ambiance? There are so many holiday classics and modern videos online to choose from to match your specific party theme and add that extra clout to your entertaining skills.
PICKING A HOLIDAY PARTY VIDEO THEME
There are a couple of ways you can set the stage for this holiday shindig. Think about the experience you want to present to your guests. You are serving up more than cheese and crackers, you’re creating the holiday experience. Select videos that reflect the mood for your family and friends. Do you want a classic, elegant holiday party setting with heartfelt warm feelings amidst a crackling fire or is your party cast more colorful characters looking for a great time?
Think of the video as background ambiance, just like the lights or scent of evergreen in the air, select videos that can play on low audio without distraction and add just an extra element to your holiday décor. Consider some of these holiday classics: How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966), Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964), A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965), Miracle on 34th Street (1947), or watching James Stewart discover what life would be like without him and help his friendly angel Clarence finally get his wings in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946).
If your guests enjoy a giggle consider National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation with Chevy Chase (1989), Elf (2003) with Will Farrell, or even Scrooged (1988) featuring Billy Murray. You can even throw in some animated classics such as The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) or puppet-friendly The Muppets Christmas Carol (1992) to wrap things up for the late night lingerers. Many of these full length holiday movies are available for download online and most are readily available on YouTube, priced anywhere from $1.99 to $14.99.
THE YOUTUBE HOLIDAY PLAYLIST ADVANTAGE
Maybe you aren’t looking for a full-length flick to play quietly in the background but a variety of handpicked videos from YouTube. Looking for a brightly-lit flickering fire to play on the TV or maybe just a want musical backdrop like Christmas carol videos? You’ll find those and more online and available to download. Perhaps you have another idea about videos you want to have playing in the background, do an online search using a video search engine.
If you don’t already have it, you can install a free version of RealPlayer to download videos to your computer by clicking the orange button in the top right corner of this page. In the meantime, we’ve rounded up a few choice holiday videos. These videos are quite long and you may be better off connecting your TV to a PC and streaming them from YouTube, since the videos will occupy a ton of space on your computer’s hard drive.
Relaxing Virtual Fireplace Fire: There are quite a few fireplace videos available on YouTube. There are some that play for about an hour. There is also a three-hour version, but keep in mind it will take up a lot of space on your computer’s hard drive.
Holiday Music: Perhaps you’re looking for something more festive. No problem, there are numerous holiday selections that can provide hours of musical and visual entertainment. From Frank Sinatra to the Trans Siberian Orchestra to Justin Bieber, you can find the melodies to match your holiday party theme perfectly. Maybe you’re looking for 10 hours straight of Jingle Bells? YouTube has that, too.
MAKING A HOLIDAY PLAYLIST, AND CHECKING IT TWICE
If selections from both suggested full-length movies and YouTube videos make your nice list or you want to start with classics and end with a more modern flow, why not create a holiday playlist for uninterrupted entertainment? You’re going to have enough to worry about with keeping the appetizers stocked and Aunt Ellen out of the mulled wine, let RealPlayer help you prepare the ultimate video holiday playlist.
Download your videos into the RealPlayer library and create the ultimate holiday playlist. In RealPlayer, you can play video clips (or tracks) continuously without a break. You can repeat a playlist or even one track over and over. To do this, first set RealPlayer to Continuous Play.
How to turn on the Continuous Play feature in RealPlayer:
1. Open RealPlayer and click the RealPlayer logo in the upper left corner of the app.
2. Select Play, then click Continuous Play.
How to create a video holiday playlist with RealPlayer:
1. Open RealPlayer.
2. Click the Library tab. Click the Playlist in the left column of the screen and then click New Playlist under Tasks.
3. Enter a name for the Playlist such as “Holiday Playlist.” Then choose Make an Empty Playlist and click OK.
4. Click Yes in the pop-up window to add clips to the playlist. Click on the videos you want to add to the Holiday Playlist . Note: To add individual clips instead of a bulk of clips press Ctrl+ Left Mouse Key.
5. When finished, click the Add to Playlist button. You can click on any video in the playlist and drag it up or down to rearrange the order of the videos.
Once you’ve downloaded your videos and sorted them with a playlist, you can also burn a DVD of your holiday selections using RealPlayer Plus. Just pop the DVD into your DVD player, press play, and kick back and enjoy watching your guests, pleased with your knack for effortless entertaining.
This holiday season, however you decorate, entertain your guests and be merry, we hope the added video element adds to the ambiance of the festivities in your home. What are your favorite holiday videos/movies? Where are some of your favorite sites to download seasonal videos online? Share your opinion on the best holiday party videos by commenting below.