The 12 APIs of Christmas

Today is 1st December which means there are 24 days until Christmas Day and the first day of Advent. But rather than collect 24 APIs, I’m showing you 12 APIs related to Christmas or used in Christmas-themed projects.

(Note: Some of these may not be active but I’ve tried my best to add APIs that are. If you spot any deprecated APIs, let me know!)

1. Festivo API

The Festivo API provides data on holidays, their dates, and where they’re celebrated for over 240 countries and states around the world. This could help people working in payroll, banking, sales, or trend analysis.

2. christmas-decorations

For Minecraft gamers, this GitHub project uses the Fabric API to add Christmas decorations to a Minecraft. Note: this is for the Java Edition only (but I’m sure there’s plenty of Christmas-themed items and skins for Bedrock Edition)

3. christmas-movie-advent-calendar

I recently wrote a Python script that used the TMDB API for Christmas movies to watch. But in jackhelodeon’s project, he has created an advent calendar of Christmas movies using the same API but in plain JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.

4. Christmas Joke Generator

Love Christmas jokes? Then you’ll enjoy this Christmas joke generator from Marcy Villegas. It uses the JokeAPI with HTML, SCSS, and Javascript to fill us with festive cheer (or groans depending on your sense of humour).

5. ChristmasVoices

Many offices will be filled with Christmas music so an app like this might come in handy. yunweneric created a web app that uses data from a Christmas lyrics API and YouTube API to provide Christmas song videos and lyrics.

6. pi-christmas-lights

Adobe engineer Devon Govett the Web Audio API with his Raspberry Pi to sync his Christmas lights to music. This might be my favourite project. The README is quite extensive to have a read and see if you can create something similar.

7. Christmas Countdown API

There are plenty of these kinds of APIs around but if you really need your Christmas countdown in JSON form, there’s an API for that!

8. Christmas Movie REST API Client

It’s another Christmas movie project but this one uses the OMDB API to create an API client in Delphi and help the user find Christmas movies. What’s more, the app is cross-platform so it can run on Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows.

9. merry-christmas-cli

Working in Terminal all day can be boring for the eyes and the mind. But this project provides amazing Christmas greetings messages straight to your Terminal via a merry-christmas API.

10. Shotstack Christmas Personalised Video Maker Demo

This is the only demo on the list but it demonstrates how to use the Shotstack Cloud Video Editing API to build an app that adds personalised text to a Christmas video. Just fill in the form and watch it work.

11. Predicting Christmas using Data Analysis

Not happy with the 25th December as the “true” day of Christmas? Wel l, there’s an app for that. Philipp Jurašić used data analysis and the Spotify Charts API to find a better date for Christmas “which isn’t determined by arbitrary astronomical periods or obscure historic reasons, but rather based on when society feels Christmas should be”. I mean, those things aren’t mutually exclusive but go off I guess!

12. WishlistAPI

I don’t know about you but sometimes, I want stuff that isn’t on Amazon and they don’t let you add external sources to your Amazon Wishlists anymore. This API handles wishlists and people can see what to buy for you and reserve it so you don’t get two of the same thing.

Bonus: Google’s Santa Tracker

Last but by no means least is Google’s Santa Tracker. If you’re not familiar with it, Google created a Santa tracker back in 201x for people to locate St Nick on Google Maps as he flew around the world, delivering all his presents. It uses the SantaAPI to do it – yes, Santa now has his own API.