Holiday Joy Powered by AI

A lot of the AI conversation is centered around the themes I cover throughout Neural Gains Weekly: productivity and automation at work, the job market, politics, markets, and the infrastructure buildout behind it all. It matters because these changes will shape our everyday lives, and we all need to be ready for a future that looks different than today. But there is another side to this technology that often gets overlooked: creativity.

I’ve found it challenging to tap into my creative side for a variety of reasons. My work forces me to think critically and solve complex problems in the healthcare space, but that doesn’t always translate into creative energy at the end of the day. I stay busy with hobbies like weightlifting, yoga, cooking, and time with friends and family, but it can still be hard to break out of routine and create something new. This is where my AI journey has helped reshape how I think and build new skills for the future. 

AI is a creativity tool that helps you create things you normally would not make, and we all have access to dozens of free tools that make experimentation easy. You can generate and edit images with natural language. You can bring a concept to life in a short video with a bit of prompt practice. The “what’s possible” in this space seems to evolve weekly as the tools get more powerful and more accessible. More importantly, this kind of use builds AI fluency. Every small experiment teaches you how to give better instructions, how to iterate, and how to get closer to the output you actually want.

That is why the holidays are such a great setting to try something new and tap into your creative side. The goal is not perfection or productivity. The goal is connection and fun. Holiday traditions are also a low-stakes way to show friends and family the fun side of AI, especially for people who have not experimented with it much yet.

This Thanksgiving, I started a new tradition with Suno AI and turned inside jokes and shared memories into a custom song for the whole family. I have zero musical talent, but in about 10 minutes I created something we will laugh about for years. It also sparked real curiosity about AI, because the output made it feel relatable instead of intimidating. If you want to try the same kind of experiment, start here. Below is a short list of holiday ideas you can test in minutes to bring more creativity and joy into your celebrations.

Ideas for your holiday celebrations

1. AI Image Pictionary: One person uses an AI image generator to generate a "hyper-realistic" or "abstract" version of a holiday movie or song. The rest of the family has to guess the title based on the AI’s interpretation.
2. The "Ugly Sweater" Makeover: Take a photo of family members in normal clothes and use an AI editor (like Google Photos’ "Magic Editor" or Adobe Firefly) to "AI-generate" the wildest, most ridiculous holiday sweaters onto them.
3. Collaborative "Exquisite Corpse" Story: Start a story in a chatbot. Each family member adds one sentence or a specific detail (e.g., "The turkey grows wings and flies away"). After everyone contributes, ask the AI to turn it into a cohesive, professional-sounding holiday fable to read aloud.
4. Mystery Guest Trivia: Ask an AI to "act" as a famous historical figure or holiday character (like Ebenezer Scrooge or a 1920s jazz singer). Family members take turns asking it questions to guess who the AI is pretending to be.
5. The "Year in Review" Poem: Paste a few bullet points of your family’s 2025 highlights into an AI and ask it to write an epic poem or a "Twas the Night Before Christmas" style summary of your year.
6. Signature Holiday Mocktails: Tell the AI what flavors your family likes (e.g., "cinnamon, apple, but not too sweet") and ask it to invent a "signature family drink" for 2025 with a fun name.
7. AI Table Talk Prompts: Ask an AI to generate "10 deep, meaningful, and slightly weird conversation starters for a multi-generational family dinner" to keep things lively.
8. Custom Place Cards: Use an AI to generate a "unique spirit animal wearing a Santa hat" for each guest based on their personality, then print them as place cards for the table.
9. Family Portrait "Time Travel": Use an AI image-to-image tool to "reimagine" a 2025 family photo as if it were taken in the 1800s, the 1970s, or even 100 years in the future.
10. Holiday "News Broadcast": Use a video AI tool or a simple voice-cloner to create a "North Pole News Report" that mentions family members by name and their "status" on the Naughty or Nice list.