You've frozen! How to use tech to keep in touch over Christmas
The holidays are going to be different this year. Three households may be more than we’ve crammed into the same room for months, but for most of us it’s a far cry from our whole family. And even if you can fit everyone you care about in the same limited gathering, you may have reasonable doubts about whether you want to take the risk that comes with it.
So it’s time to start preparing for alternatives. We may be Zoomed out, but with a little extra effort, even a remote gathering can feel special and fun.
Choose a medium for your message
We’ve been doing this dance for almost nine months now, so you know the score: Zoom is technologically reliable, Google Meet doesn’t require anyone to install software, FaceTime is easiest to use if everyone involved is on Apple devices, and so on.
Zoom’s 40-minute limit on free accounts could put some off, but there’s a chance the company will repeat the giveaway it announced for the US Thanksgiving weekend and remove that cap for a few days either side of Christmas. If not, best to steer clear unless someone in your family can piggyback on a work account (provided their employer doesn’t see an issue with that).
This is also the time to quietly find out what hardware various family members have available. That may help you decide how to chat – if someone has picked up a Facebook Portal, for instance, then Messenger could be a good idea, while people with poor internet connections at home may want to chance it with a 4G phone and a mobile app.
Get set up
Chances are you don’t want to sit at a desk for your family gathering, so it’s time to get things set up in the living room. If any household has a streaming
box that supports screen sharing, such as a Chromecast or an Apple TV, then you’re in luck: load up your voice chat service of choice, share the screen to your TV, and place the phone or camera close enough that you can look your family in the eye but far enough away to avoid feedback.
If you don’t have that hardware, don’t panic. Instead, the easiest thing to do is simply to plug your computer or phone into your TV directly, using an HDMI cable and, if necessary, an adapter for either your iPhone or your Android device that lets you plug it into your phone or laptop. Then just get the video chat software running on as normal and it should be easily visible on the big screen as well.
If you can, wear headphones
Many of us will be celebrating with multiple people in the room. But if you’re on your own, and you have a comfortable pair of headphones to wear while chatting to your family, doing so can smooth things over for everyone.
In order to avoid screeching feedback, most video-chat services mute the microphone while someone else is speaking, which is why some conversations end up with everyone hearing snippets of what other people are saying. But if you wear headphones, you avoid that problem. Even if you’re the only person on the chat wearing them, it can make things easier for everyone.
Try to sync up some food
You’re probably not going to be able to – or want to – cook four different turkeys in four different houses and all sit down at the same time. But it can improve the sense of community if you have some shared snacks planned beforehand.
That could be as simple as all agreeing on the nibbles you’ll prepare (you probably even have some Christmas traditions already, after all), or as complex as each ordering in the same cheese plate or beer selection so you have something to talk about while the kids are playing with their new toys.
Get some games going
It wouldn’t be Christmas without some family games. The good news is, it’s just as easy to play charades over a webcam as it is in person (it even works if the audio’s a bit choppy), and no one’s going to be that sad if they have to pass up on Monopoly for a year. But, thanks to the pandemic, there are also a load of great party games available in simple online implementations. Just get everyone to load up the same site on their phones – ideally one each – and you can replace the cards, boards and pieces which you would normally use.
At the website Netgames.io you can play party games including Codenames, Spyfall and One Night Werewolf without needing to register or sign up, while more traditional Christmas games such as Uno (play.unofreak.com) or, yes, Monopoly (webopoly.org) are also available elsewhere.