Sunshine and Hurricanes

Smart Parenting with Purpose

  • Mom Life
  • Young Kids
  • Tweens & Teens
  • Technology
    • Apps for Kids – The Ultimate Guide
    • Safety
  • Family Resources
    • Recipes
      • Meal Plans
      • Snacks
      • Dessert
      • Holiday Recipes
    • Travel
      • Florida
      • Disney
    • Savings
      • Monthly Best Buys
    • Holidays
  • Gift Guides
  • About S & H
    • Contact Sunshine and Hurricanes
    • Disclosure Policy
  • Shop

5 MUST HAVE Holiday Apps

By Kira Lewis 4 Comments

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest

It’s here, the most stress….I mean most wonderful time of the year.  School holiday concerts, parties, gift giving, seasonal TV special watching, cookie baking, turkey roasting, stocking stuffing, carol singing. Okay, you get the idea.  There’s A LOT going on for most of our families. So much of it is fun and meaningful, but we can quickly find ourselves in a grinchy groove not enjoying any of it if we get too overwhelmed.  There isn’t a one size fits all solution, but I’ve got 5 MUST HAVE Holiday Apps that I think cover the major areas of “doing” during the holidays and can help you to get on with the enJOYing.

Do the holidays stress you out? Does if feel like you can't get organized and you'll never get everything done? Bring the happy back to your holidays with these 5 apps that will help you get everything under control from gift giving to party planning and even holiday travel. Get out of your grinchy groove and get back to the joy of the season. 5 Must Have Holiday Apps to make the season less stressful. SunshineandHurricanes.com

5 MUST HAVE Holiday Apps
(and a few bonus ones just for fun)

 

1.  Shopping

5 Must Have Apps for the Holidays

 

 

red laser iconRED LASER – FREE Available for iPhone and Android

Don’t go gift shopping without this app. It lets you use your mobile phone’s camera to scan the barcode of almost any product and then compare prices to see where you might be able to get a better deal. Results are delivered quickly and will cover both local and online results. This has been one of my favorite Apps for years and continues to be the leader in its category. A great way to help keep to your holiday budget!

2.  Gift Giving

5 Must Have Apps for the Holidays

iGive Gifts iGive Gifts – $.99 Available for the iPhone

This App helps you keep track of all the people you have to buy for, their sizes and how much you’ve budgeted for each person.You can take pictures of gifts either to save as a reminder for a future purchase or to help you recall what you’ve bought so far.  As you purchase gifts, you can tabulate what you’ve spent vs. what you’ve budgeted and even filter the list to view only those for whom you still have to find that perfect something. I liked that it also gives you the ability to associate gifts with certain events, and that you can not only track what you give, but also what you receive. A big help when thank you note writing time comes around.

{adinserter Tech responsive blog ads}

3. Holiday Travel

5 Must Have Apps for the Holidays

5 Must Have Apps for the Holidays

waze iconWAZE- FREE for iPhone and Android

Over the hills and through the wood avoiding all the traffic jams and finding the best prices on gas to Grandma’s house you will go! Welcome to the wonders of modern technology. This App will help you find the best route based on actual “real people” feedback from the communities where you will be traveling. They’ll report on all the insider info to make sure you know where to go and which gas station is offering the best deal on gas that day! People helping people at the holidays, what could be better (well, unless of course you were hoping to get stuck in traffic on the way to Grandma’s)

 

4. Event Planning

 

5 Must Have Apps for the Holidays

 

pro party planner icon Pro Party Planner  and Pro Holiday Planner– $4.99 for the iPhone

This is considered the top party planning app on iTunes for a reason. It is one heck of a bargain for what basically amounts to your own little personal assistant right at your fingertips. Here you can manage guest lists, RSVPs, thank you notes,seating charts, budgets and all other hostess with mostess “to dos”. There is even a virtual reality that will let you visualize the way the decor will look.  The app integrates with Facebook to help keep guests up to date and if you happen to have multiple people involved in the organizing you can even delegate out tasks.  Whether it’s a huge holiday bash you are pulling together or a simple seasonal soiree, the Pro Party Planner has got you covered.

Now, there is another version that is supposed to be available specifically for the holidays called Pro Holiday Planner.  At the time that I wrote this post, if you clicked through to purchase, the site was saying that it was not available in the U.S., but hopefully that will change so I went ahead and included the link just in case.

 

5. Food

5 Must Have Apps for the Holiday

 

food 52 icon Holiday Recipes & Party Planning Guide, by Food52  – $3.99 for the iPhone

Seriously, this App is worth the amazing food photos alone. You don’t have to actually plan a meal, you can just dream about one. Okay, but if you are actually going to be serving some sort of meal to friends and family this holiday or even just hosting something as simple as a cocktail party than this is the only App you’ll need when it comes to the food.   There are dozens of recipes for all the traditional holiday favorites along with a few to take it up a notch if you want to do something a little different.  You’ll also find complete menu planning capabilities, video tutorials and step-by-step slideshows.  You don’t have to be a good cook or even like to cook, with this app no one will ever know!

A Couple Bonus Holiday Apps Just for Fun
(Yes, the holidays are supposed to be F-U-N)

Christmas: Starring You! by StoryBots– Use your camera roll or Facebook photos to put faces on five animated singing and dancing elves to your favorite holiday tunes. It’s been around awhile and still cracks my kids up every time.

GlowTunes Christmas – Decorate a virtual Christmas tree with all the trimmings along with festive holiday tunes and even some virtual snow!

Holiday Advent Calendar – This was the most like the real deal and its great for kids. Open the different flaps (with a tap of course) to reveal the hidden item. Parents can set it so kids can only open one per day. A few favorite holiday songs accompany the app along with some other cute features.

Sing Along Christmas Carols – Sing along with many of your seasonal favorites. Karaoke style with words just in case you forgot a few over the years. 🙂

Looking for other tips to not just survive the holiday season, but to actually find some of that peace and joy everyone keeps talking about? Check out of our holiday savings posts HERE.

We’ve also go tons of great holiday help on Pinterest:

Follow Sunshine and Hurricanes ‘s board Christmas Gifts & Tips on Pinterest.

Do you have any favorite Holiday Apps? 

Join Our Mailing List

We send out our blog posts by email--join today and receive a free SMART Parenting Printable as a Thank You gift! Your email is never sold or shared.

Filed Under: Apps, Technology Tagged With: Easy Holidays, Gift Giving, Gift Giving Apps, Help for the Holidays, Holiday Budgets, Holiday Cooking, holidays, Recipe Apps, Shopping Apps, Travel Apps

About Kira Lewis

Kira Lewis is a mom to a strong and sassy 8 year old girl and a funny, soccer playing teen boy.  Her career has included everything from corporate ladder climbing to teaching yoga. She's settled for now on free-lance writing and blogging where she covers topics like motherhood, parenting, technology, Florida travel and raising tweens and teens.Keep up with her parental musings by subscribing to sunshine and hurricane's weekly newsletter HERE.

You can also find her on social media:

Facebook / Instagram / Twitter / Pinterest 

« Best Ever Homemade Brownies
How to Save on Holiday Gifts »

Comments

  1. Heather M. says

    November 5, 2014 at 8:34 am

    Thanks for sharing these! I have grabbed 2 of them and I’m ready to give them a try this season!

    Reply
    • Kira Lewis says

      November 5, 2014 at 9:30 am

      That’s great! You’ll have to let us know what you think!

      Reply
  2. Dorothy Boucher says

    November 3, 2014 at 5:52 pm

    wow !! talk about some cool apps 🙂 thanks for share @tisonlyme143

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Party Planning on a Budget says:
    November 16, 2015 at 5:22 pm

    […] 5 Must Have Holiday Apps […]

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter
Hi There! We’re Michelle and Kira, two Florida moms who know that parenting is full of sunshine and hurricanes. So glad you are here. >>>LEARN MORE





POPULAR POSTS

  • Disrespectful Teens or Tweens - 5 Effective Ways to End the Attitude Today!
    Disrespectful Teens or Tweens - 5 Effective Ways to End the Attitude Today!
  • The Importance of Chores for Children (Printable Chore Chart)
    The Importance of Chores for Children (Printable Chore Chart)
  • Mama, These Are The Words I Know You Need To Hear Today
    Mama, These Are The Words I Know You Need To Hear Today
  • Lego Games Lego Challenge - Thinking Outside the Boxed Set
    Lego Games Lego Challenge - Thinking Outside the Boxed Set
  • 10 Dyslexia Apps To Help Your Struggling Reader Succeed
    10 Dyslexia Apps To Help Your Struggling Reader Succeed

Pinterest

Follow Sunshine and Hurricanes Best of S&H on Pinterest.

INSTAGRAM

Truth • • • #truth #parentingtips #parenting Truth
•
•
•
#truth #parentingtips #parentingkids #momlife
One & the same ☕️ (via @fowllanguagecomics )
•
•
•
#momhumor #funnymom #raisingkids #littleones #lovemykids #momlife
Never doubt that (via @michelle.merenda ) • • Never doubt that (via @michelle.merenda )
•
•
•
#parentingkids #parentingteens #raisinglittleones #momsofinstagram #momlife
We all had a playroom growing up...it was called o We all had a playroom growing up...it was called outside
*
*
*
#momhumor #parentingwithpurpose #raisingkids
Ever wonder what to say when your child is feeling Ever wonder what to say when your child is feeling left out?  A few years ago, I watched from my park bench as a young mother tried to console her sobbing daughter. “I’m sorry, honey. I don’t blame you for being upset.”  “I don’t know why they won’t let me be in their group for the talent show. They just said they already had enough people and their routine was done and there wasn’t anything they could do about it. I told them I would make a new one up, but they wouldn’t do it.”  I tried to focus on my kindle while occasionally looking for my kids to exit the school door. But as much as I tried not to eavesdrop, I had to admit I was interested to hear how the mom would handle this all-too-common situation of a child feeling left out.  “Well, they’re probably just jealous of you honey, because you are such a good gymnast and they aren’t. They probably don’t want you in their group because you’ll show them up,” the mom stated matter-of-factly. “You should do a solo routine. Or maybe one with Chloe.”  “You think?” the girl replied, her tears slowing down. “You think they’re just jealous of my tumbling?”  “Totally.”  Several minutes passed before my girls came out, but the interaction between the mother and daughter stuck with me for a lot longer.  Maybe the girls were jealous, or maybe they honestly had their routine finished.  To continue reading check the link in bio.
Repeat after me! * * * #momsofinstagram #parenting Repeat after me!
*
*
*
#momsofinstagram #parentingkids #raisingkids #momsofinstagram
Where did all of our money go?? * * * #momhumor #r Where did all of our money go??
*
*
*
#momhumor #raisingkids #funnymom #momofinstagram #momsofinstagram #momlife
Instagram post 17870490628965807 Instagram post 17870490628965807
This is an awesome way to keep track of height * * This is an awesome way to keep track of height
*
*
*
#cleverparents #parentingwithpurpose #momlife #momsofinstagram
Follow on Instagram

Copyright © 2021 · PRIVACY POLICY · Website by Moritz Fine Designs LLC

Copyright © 2021 · Tasteful Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

  • 49
  • 214
Join our mailing list today and we'll send a free thank you gift!
×
×
Join our Mailing List Today!

Love our tech for parents series, mom advice, recipes and fun ideas? Join our list today and receive a weekly digest of our blog posts, delivered directly to your inbox. Plus, we'll also send you a free SMART Parenting Printable as a Thank You!

 (Your email is never sold or shared.)