holidays

For some reason, I was put in charge of putting together and sending out our family holiday photo cards this year. This was a huge mistake.

I am a procrastinator, so just about everything I do gets done with some amount of stress and anxiety and usually costs me more money than it should. And while I vowed this project would be different, here I am three months later on December 12 putting together a photo card for the holidays.

Have you ever done a Web search for "photo greeting cards"? There are a lot of options. Too … Read more

U.S. consumers continue to turn to the Internet for their holiday shopping, according to new figures released today by market researcher ComScore.

Online sales for the holiday season to date (since November 1 to Friday) totaled $24.6 billion, a 15 percent increase over the $21.4 billion spent during the same period last year, ComScore reported. Last week's spending totaled $5.9 billion, also a 15 percent increase over the corresponding period last year.

"These highlights represent another very positive sign for the holiday shopping season, as the week following 'Cyber Week' often experiences relative softness … Read more

Smartphones--can you give them as a gift? And if so, which one should you give as a gift? Go with the Droid Razr or wait for the Galaxy Nexus? Or learn to love Siri and all her quirks? We're here to help--live.

CNET smartphones expert Jessica Dolcourt joins the CNET Holiday Help Desk Monday Dec. 12 at at noon Pacific, 3 p.m. Eastern at CNET Live.

Monday's show is our fourth help desk of the season, here to answer your holiday tech-shopping questions. Not only will Jessica help you pick a smartphone, we'll also have Claudia … Read more

Have a family member who has an iTunes gift card on his or her Christmas list this holiday season?

Odds are you have at least one person who does. If you aren't the gift-card-giving type, however, and prefer something that requires a bit more thought be put into it, consider gifting an app.… Read more

Need laptop advice? Want to find out the inside scoop on Amazon's deals leading into the holidays? We're here to help--live.

Tune in to the CNET Holiday Help Desk today and every Monday until Dec. 19 at noon Pacific, 3 p.m. Eastern at CNET Live.

Today's show is the third of five weekly call-in shows designed to help answer your holiday tech shopping questions. This week, Dan Ackerman helps make sense of the sea of laptop deals that have been enticing buyers since Black Friday. After all, you don't want to pick the wrong one, … Read more

There's nothing like a little holiday music to get you in the holiday mood. To help you get your holiday music fix this season, here are some Web sites streaming holiday music:

Pandora Pandora's holiday genre has several stations including pop, classical, R&B, country, rock, children's, and more. They're all available through the mobile app as well.

Slacker Slacker has a nice selection of holiday stations to choose from. Just navigate to the "Seasonal" section and you'll see the list of stations. The stations are accessible via the mobile app, too.… Read more

Handwritten gift tags might be a thing of the past.

This holiday season, JC Penney is offering Santa Tags, a new option that allows gift-buyers to record voice messages for their recipients to play back upon unboxing their gifts. And it's all done with QR codes.

The voice message is attached to a QR code, which the recipient scans with a QR scanner on a mobile phone, and the voice note is instantly played back.

Pretty cool.

But you don't have to go to JC Penney to make this happen, because there's an even better DIY option … Read more

Cut the Rope, one of the hottest smartphone games, just got an update to the free standalone holiday version for both the iPhone and iPad (universal) featuring new challenges and holiday-themed levels.

Certain apps have staying power on the top-10 list at the iTunes App Store and Cut The Rope offers just the right mix of challenging physics-based gameplay, family-friendly graphics, and tons of levels to explore to keep it near the top.… Read more

Budget tech is one of our favorite categories here at CNET, so that's why we're running not one, but two budget tech gift roundups this year.

My compadre John Falcone put together a list of the 10 best el-cheapo tech products out there with his Best tech gifts under $50 feature.

I get a little more wiggle room with a $99.99 budget, which is why this list should really be called "Best tech gifts between $50 and $100." But more people are looking on Google for "best tech gifts under $100," so we'… Read more