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Let Santa pick Christmas music for you with this Alexa skill

Tired of listening to the same old Christmas songs on repeat? Use this Amazon Alexa skill to mix things up this year.

Taylor Martin CNET Contributor
Taylor Martin has covered technology online for over six years. He has reviewed smartphones for Pocketnow and Android Authority and loves building stuff on his YouTube channel, MOD. He has a dangerous obsession with coffee and is afraid of free time.
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Taylor Martin
2 min read

If you're tired of listening to the same Christmas songs on repeat year after year but you still want to get into the holiday spirit, you can put your Alexa speaker to work for you.

Popular radio streaming service iHeartRadio has created an Alexa skill that lets Santa help you pick the Christmas music best suited to you. The skill is called iHeart Santa. Here's how it works.

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Enable iHeart Santa

There are two ways to enable an Alexa skill.

First, you can simply ask for the skill by saying, "Alexa, open iHeart Santa." But this doesn't always work. You can also try saying, "Alexa, enable iHeart Santa."

If that doesn't work, you can manually enable the skill by opening the Alexa app on Android or iOS, opening the side menu by tapping the hamburger button and selecting Skills. Search for "iHeart Santa" in the search bar, select the skill in the results and click Enable.

There's a catch to this skill, however. It only works on second-generation hardware. So if you happen to have a first-generation Echo or Echo Dot, the skill will not work. But it will work on the second-generation Echo and Echo Dot, as well as the Echo Plus , Echo Show , Echo Spot and within the Amazon shopping app on Android and iOS.

Asking iHeart Santa for tunes

Once enabled, using iHeart Santa to play music is very simple. You can say one of two commands to open the skill: "Alexa, open iHeart Santa," or, "Alexa, ask iHeart Santa for Christmas music."

Santa will take it from there by asking you a series of questions to which you will answer "Yes" or "No." Below are a few examples of the questions he will ask you:

  • "Are you in the mood for reindeer jokes, silly songs and Christmas fun?"
  • "Can I interest you in the best Christmas songs from 1 to 92?"
  • "Can I interest you in a bunch of Christmas songs millennials have never heard of?"
  • "Do you have a hankering for country holiday favorites?"

Continue answering "No" until you come across a style of Christmas music that interests you. When you answer "Yes," Santa will begin playing a related and commercial-free iHeartChristmas Radio station.

Watch this: 7 fun ways to use Alexa this Christmas

If Christmas music isn't your bag, don't worry. We've already covered seven fun Christmas things to do with Alexa.