It's the start of the holiday season, and so people are unpacking their trees, lighting their lights, and putting up the same Christmas decorations as last year and the year before.
But we are computer geeks and we have old electronics. This includes old TVs and monitors, meaning that with limitless screen size you can do something more creative.
Let's turn this into a cyclical holiday art exhibition.
Even if you don't have a smart TV, you can probably still easily set up Christmas visuals to create an atmosphere of friendship with Santa Claus in your home.
If you have a flat-screen TV that was released before the Smart TV revolution, it likely has a USB port and can play common formats such as MP4 videos. All you have to do is go to a site like Pexels and download free christmas videos. Then put them on a flash drive in a folder and set your TV's player to repeat the video when it reaches the end.
Unfortunately, since different dumb TVs have media players with different conventions and controls, you'll have to see how yours works or experiment with it.
If you have an old smart TV or a spare streaming box that can be connected to an old “dumb” TV, then you can either still use your own video files on a flash drive (unless it's an Apple TV) in combination with a video player app. Alternatively, there should be no shortage of collections of Christmas-themed videos that last several hours on services like YouTube. So Video about the Christmas atmosphere
Of course, if you don't have YouTube Premium then your video may be interrupted by advertising, but maybe it’s worth paying for at least one month?
If you have an old CRT TV, you can make something even more cozy and aesthetically pleasing. I use HDMI to Composite Converter To connect your Chromebook to your Sony Trinitron CRT TV and the results look pretty good.
Using it as a virtual fireplace
I live in a part of the world where it's summer during the holidays, so although I do have a fireplace, I can't use it during that time. Besides, Santa needs to come down my chimney and I don't want him scattering burning ashes and wood all over my home library. Even if you live where it snows at Christmas, you may not have a fireplace at all, but luckily we can still create that atmosphere using a virtual fireplace.
If you're a Netflix subscriber, you can choose from professionally recorded fireplaces in Fireplace in your home row. They sound great if you have a good set of speakers to plug into your old TV. Of course, YouTube also provides plenty of options, such as this incredibly popular fireplace video, which is recorded in 4K/60, making it look incredibly realistic!
If you're using an old spare TV for this purpose, you can position it low on the floor, at the same height as a real fireplace, perhaps next to your Christmas tree, with very little risk of burning it and all the gifts underneath it.
Creating a Special List of Christmas Music Videos
Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without the right music, and these days, most of us play mega-streamed music playlists to set the mood in the background. However, if you have an old TV to put to work, why not include a list of Christmas music videos instead?
Again, YouTube provides many options, such as this playlist Vevo music videos featuring the best Christmas hits starting from (i it's a pity) Mariah Carey All I want for Christmas is you.
I also found that the Spotify app on TVs has excellent quality music videos, as well as lots of amazing community curated playlists, including for Christmas.
Of course, there's nothing stopping you from taking the time to compile your own Christmas song list. You can take shortcuts or really put your heart into it.
Use it as a rotating photo frame for family fun.
Perhaps the easiest thing you can do with your old TV for Christmas is to load it with family photos and display them in a carousel or some sort of slideshow. If you have family visiting for the holidays, you can ask everyone to send photos. Heck, it might even be better if you ask people who can't be with you for the holidays to send photos too, so they can be there in spirit.
As for how this can be accomplished, there are many options. With dumb old flat screen TVs, you can usually just copy a bunch of photos onto a flash drive and use the same media player function you used for videos. If you have an older smart TV, there are various apps that act as slideshow players, and you can often connect them to cloud photo accounts like Google Photos. This makes it very easy to create a huge photo frame.
While you're at it, if you have smart speakers, you can use them to spice up Christmasand don't forget that more people (and children) will come over the holidays and you can still use that old TV for watch classic Christmas movies.
