This post is in partnership with Amazon Devices & Services. As always, all opinions are our own.

Congratulations, team, we did it! After a year that has felt, somehow, both incredibly long and also wildly fast, we’re at the end. Like most people, we’ve had a year full of growth and change and highs and lows. One of the biggest trends in our lives these past 12 months has been a constant attempt at being more mindful. Don’t roll your eyes, we’re serious!

We’ve been actively taking things more slowly, creating and really sticking to a fitness (and yoga!) routine, and bettering what we put in and on our bodies. Given that we’ve been staying in more than ever this year, we’ve started working on making our home the ultimate relaxation spot through our decor and design choices but also through our tech setup with Amazon Devices & Services. We’ve basically built a smart home that can do most of our daily little tasks, like turning the lights on or off, reading out the weather, starting up the diffuser, building shopping lists, playing music and the radio, making video calls, and even walking us through recipes.

This week we even brought some of those tech pieces into our holiday decor! While we never really go all out with holiday decorations (we’re not scrooges, though, promise!) we do like to add a bit of holiday flair here and there. We created a holiday Routine (a pre-set list of actions that Alexa can start with a single command, or at a scheduled time, or when you arrive home, etc.) that turns on the string lights, starts up Christmas music, and turns on the TV all with the command “Alexa, make it festive.”

We’ve got a few pieces of holiday decor up, but are mostly relying on our favorite tech devices from Amazon Devices & Services to bring in the added holiday cheer and cozyness. We’ve got our string lights plugged into an Amazon Smart Plug so they can be turned on with voice commands. Our Amazon Echo can play our favorite Christmas tunes, and our Fire TV Stick with Alexa Voice Remote is great for watching our favorite Christmas movies—Matt’s is Home Alone 2: Lost In New York and mine is Gremlins which Matt says doesn’t count but I think he’s wrong, so. When we can’t agree we’ll put on one of those virtual fireplaces for a vibe that’s just tacky enough for a holiday evening in.

Getting familiar with all the different devices and services from Amazon this past year has really shown us how to live next level, and how they can be used for everyday utility and also for special occasion fun stuff like this festive holiday setup. If you want to learn more about the different offerings, just check out the Amazon Devices & Services homepage—and as always, feel free to shoot us an email or direct message on Instagram if you’ve got questions about any of it!

Thanks so much for stopping by the blog, and we wish you the happiest of holidays this year!

xoxo Beau & Matt

Happy Holidays from Our Festive Smart Home!