10 Best Christmas projects

By Rob Zwetsloot. Posted

We love seeing people make their own festive projects at this time of year, and we always try to include one of our own in every December issue of The MagPi. This year we show you how to make smart Christmas tree lights.

If you’re still feeling a bit humbug about the whole Yuletide malarkey, here are 10 other incredible Christmas projects to get you in the spirit.

Minecraft-controlled Christmas tree

VR to RL

Minecraft can be hacked with a bit of code so that you can make it do as you wish. But this also means that, via more code, it can interact with reality. David Stevens made it so changes to the Christmas tree in the game alter the lights outside. Clever!

Hack Minecraft using code so when its Christmas lights change colour your own tree lights do too

Raspberry Pi Christmas Tree Light Show

Advanced tree lights

We quite like the smart lights we made ourselves, but if you want to do some serious Christmas tree hacking, we suggest taking a look at this amazing project on Instructables.

Hack your Christmas tree lights using this incredible tutorial on Instructables

Secret Santa Babbage

Upgrade your office

If you find fishing names out of a hat a bit old-fashioned, you can always have Babbage Bear choose for you. Squeeze his hand and he’ll print out a piece of paper showing who you need to buy for. There's a £5 gift limit, though.

Santa Babbage chooses which colleague you need to buy a present for

Raspberry Pi Christmas Light Display

Home light automation

This is a serious amount of lights all over this house to be controlled by a Raspberry Pi. David does so using a phone to connect to Raspbian via VNC.

How's this for a home automation hack?

Pireplace

Raspberry Pi fireplace

Some people like to turn on the fireplace video on Netflix; others prefer to create digital fires of their own. This one also does the impossible and can cycle through different colours of flame.

Take your virtual fireplace to the next level with this flame colour-changing project

Naughty or Nice machine

Make a list

A modern take on the palm readers you used to find on seaside piers, although this machine takes a more binary approach: are you naughty... or nice? Think happy thoughts.

Do you really deserve a gift from Santa this year? The Naughty or Nice Machine will decide!

Lightshow Pi

Drop the house bass

Another project where a house has been kitted out with full Raspberry Pi-powered lights – only this one plays music and syncs to it as well. Especially phat dubstep tracks.

The incredible light show on this Raspberry Pi=enabled display flashes along in sync with the music

Santa detector

Catch Saint Nick

This is a fun Scratch project that allows you to go to sleep happy in the knowledge that you won’t miss Santa. Maybe you’ll find out exactly how big his sack of toys is.

You need to be lightning fast to catch Santa delivering presents. The Santa Detector gives a helping hand

The MagPi Christmas Card Cover

Hack the magazine

A couple years ago we made a little project that allowed you to turn a copy of The MagPi into a light-up Christmas card. Grab the PDF, print the cover on card, and give it a go!

Send us your holiday projects

Made something with Raspberry Pi for this holiday season? Send us photos on Twitter (@TheMagPi) or via email and we might feature you in the next issue!

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