Upgrade your Christmas party
Christmas entertaining duties got you down? Take it to the next level with a tablet.
Christmas and New Year are a time for family and friends – we throw parties, we cook elaborate meals, we get-together with the people nearest and dearest to us. And we just about run ourselves ragged in the process! Christmas entertaining should be fun, but the pressure to get it right and please everyone can be overwhelming.
Sound familiar? Well, it doesn’t have to be this way. You can use some of the same technology that powers your productivity at the office to take some of the strain out of entertaining. Here are 3 ways you can use technology to stave off the bah-humbugs this Christmas and New Year:
Swap your cookbooks for a tablet:
A lot of people use Christmas and New Year as an excuse to up their culinary game and try out some new recipes. But if you’ve ever tried whipping up a soufflé whilst craning your neck to check the recipe in your trusty cookbook, then you know that books just don’t belong in the kitchen. They’re cumbersome, difficult to search and impossible to clean, should the gravy get away from you.
Tablets are a revolution in the kitchen. With a tool like the new Bing Food and Drink App, you can easily search for winning recipes and use step-by-step video instructions to make sure your technique is on point. Best of all, with a Windows 8.1 tablet you can use the app in hands-free mode. Intuitive gesture controls allow you to navigate the app without tainting your tablet with your grubby gravy fingers.
Invite virtual guests with Skype: Sometimes the people closest to our hearts can’t be close to our tables at Christmas time. Maybe you can’t be with the people you love this year, but with Skype you can at least see them and chat with them. With a little planning and a few tablets, you could even host a virtual family reunion. And if you’re worried your Yorkshire Pudding wont stack up to mum’s and she can’t be there to help you this year, you can always dial her in via Skype while you’re doing the cooking and she can give you pointers in real time.
Keep the kids’ table happy with apps: Christmas parties can be hard on the little ones. The grownups make lots of unfamiliar food and then they stay up late talking about grownup stuff. For the knee-high set, it’s no fun at all. But rather than cut the evening short or spend the evening listening to the kids mope about how bored they are, why not use a tablet to keep them entertained while the grownups enjoy each-others’ company? With a galaxy of movies on apps like blinkbox and tons of great games available, a Windows 8.1 tablet is an easy way to keep the kids happy.
Visit the Microsoft Store to see the latest Windows Devices.