It’s the most wonderful time of the year. That means it’s time to break out my favorite smart home automation. We wait all year to do this, which means it has become a modern family tradition.
I used to have to crawl under the tree to turn on the lights
I still remember the dark days with a shudder. Back before smart plugs, the only place I could plug in my Christmas lights was behind where the Christmas tree always goes. It meant that to turn the Christmas lights on and off, I’d have to lie down on the floor and wriggle under the branches of the tree to reach the switch. Far from the Christmas lights being something magical, they were something I dreaded having to turn on and off.
Thankfully, once we got our first smart plug, everything changed. I could connect the lights through the smart plug and turn them on and off from my phone or on a schedule. No longer did I need to get pine needles down the back of my shirt while crawling around under the tree.
My automation provides the perfect festive lighting and music
Turning the smart plug on and off from my phone was great, but it wasn’t particularly magical. I decided to create an Alexa routine that would turn the lights on when I said a specific phrase. This made things feel a little bit more like magic, but I wasn’t done yet.
Turning on the Christmas tree lights didn’t feel particularly festive when the living room itself was still bright. I added another part to the routine that would dim the living room lights and then turn on the Christmas tree lights. The result was far more impressive.
Things were looking Christmassy, but they weren’t sounding very Christmassy. I needed to add some audio to the mix. I added another part to the routine that would start my carefully curated Christmas playlist. Now things really did feel magical.
Why this one automation means “it’s Christmas” in my house
I use Home Assistant for almost all my smart home automations, but I originally set up this automation as an Alexa routine, as back then, triggering Home Assistant automations from Alexa wasn’t as simple as it is today, using Home Assistant Cloud. When I first set it up, the Alexa routine required a trigger phrase that we could say to make the routine run.
One of my favorite Christmas songs is Merry Xmas Everybody by Slade (if you don’t know it, you’re welcome). There’s a part near the end of the song where the legendary Noddy Holder screams “it’s Christmas!” at the top of his voice. This seemed like the perfect choice to me, so the phrase I chose was “Alexa, it’s Christmas!”
I eventually replaced the Alexa routine with a Home Assistant automation, and I’ve added a few more things to it over the years, but the trigger phrase has always remained the same. My kids love screaming “Alexa, it’s Christmas!” at the Echo Show in the living room and seeing the lights dim, the Christmas tree lights turn on, and the festive music start to play.
It’s become something of a festive tradition now. We decorate the tree together as a family (while recording an obligatory time-lapse video) and once the decorations are up, we decide which of us gets the honor of yelling the first “Alexa, it’s Christmas!” of the year.
You can build your own Christmas scene on almost any platform
Making a festive automation like this is one of the simplest things you can do with your smart home. All you need is a smart plug for your Christmas lights and a smart home system such as Alexa, Google Home, or Apple Home set up for voice control.
You can then create an automation that will turn on your smart plug when you speak a specific phrase, such as “Alexa, make it Christmassy,” or “Siri, make it merry and bright.” You can add as much or as little as you want to your Christmas automation; even just turning the Christmas tree lights on with a festive phrase can feel magical.
There is one other automation that you’ll need. I had to create a second automation to turn the Christmas lights off again, as otherwise I’d be back to the bad old days of crawling under the tree. It’s just as easy as creating the original automation, but this one turns everything off instead of on.
You’ll need a different trigger phrase, of course. Ours is the highly imaginative “Alexa, pause Christmas.” It’s not as magical as the one that turns the lights on, but it does the job.
My festive automation started life as a way to turn the Christmas tree lights on without having to crawl around on the ground. Over the years, it’s become more than just an automation, however. It’s now a bona fide Christmas tradition and something we look forward to every year.
