We know decorations are a big part of the holidays as they help set the mood for celebrations. At Christmas, hanging trees, lights, and ornaments is a good place to start.
Likewise, you can also decorate your Mac, but not literally. You don’t have to attach a wreath to it, but you can bring your Mac to life with cool, Christmas-themed animations and details like Santa Claus in his sleigh sliding across your screen.
So if you’re interested, we’ve compiled a list of cool customization hacks to help bring some Christmas cheer to your Mac.
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1. Choose a festive live wallpaper
First select a Christmas wallpaper. You can go for a minimalist look with Apple’s solid color and dynamic background picker, or choose a background from your photo album. Either way, you need to change your desktop wallpaper on a Mac to make it more festive.
Then take your Christmas wallpaper one step closer to the North Pole by adding snow action to your Mac’s background with the third-party app iSnow. Unfortunately, it’s a paid app, but that’s what it takes to make it snow on your desktop wallpaper.
It’s pretty easy to adjust the details of the animated background in the settings. You can decide whether you would rather let Santa Claus fly across your screen in his sleigh or let Sinterklass ride along on his majestic white horse. You can also control how heavy it snows and how much snow accumulates at the bottom of your screen.
Downloads: iSnow ($0.99)
2. Customize your folder icons
Looking at the blue folder icon on Mac can be quite boring. And when you have multiple folders on display, it can seem cheesy, especially if you’re someone who prioritizes aesthetics.
But macOS gives you the creative freedom to tweak certain things to your satisfaction. You can turn the boring blue folder icon into a more visually appealing icon — say, a bag of presents from Santa.
Simply download a PNG file of the image you want to use from a credible source online. You can get creative here and choose an image that best suits your wallpaper or represents what Christmas means to you.
After downloading the PNG file, copy it. Next, Control-click the folder you want to customize. Choose get information from the dialog that appears. Click on the blue folder icon in the upper left corner of the information window and then press Command + V to insert the new symbol.
The options for custom alert sounds on Mac are pretty limited. And to get in the mood for Christmas, a little chime sounds like a great way to get in the holiday spirit. The good news is that you can get creative in macOS and create your own custom alert tones.
Again, there’s only so much you can do with your Mac’s widget options to make a holiday statement. However, you can find a decent selection of third-party apps on the App Store to help you achieve a Christmas-themed decor.
Color Widgets is a free macOS app that allows you to integrate Christmas elements into your widget display. While some templates are free to use, most are only available if you upgrade to the premium plan.
There are a number of Christmas themed calendars, quotes, and clock and date templates to choose from. You can customize these widgets to your liking by uploading images from your Photos library.
Downloads: Color Widgets: Custom widgets (free premium version available)
4. Customize your cursor, accent and highlight colors
It’s time to zoom in on the micro details that can add a touch of festivity to your Mac’s screen. You can customize cursor, accent, and highlight colors with the same care and intent that you choose a ribbon or bow.
Change the cursor color in macOS to set the cursor outline and fill colors to your favorite Christmas color. Still in system settingsgo to Looks and select the appropriate accent and highlight colors.
Whatever you do, know that sometimes you can lose sight of your cursor if you choose a cursor that is the exact color of your background image. So consider choosing complementary colors instead to save yourself the little trouble of finding your cursor on the screen.
5. Change the background image of your web browser (Safari and Chrome)
Let’s move some of the happy elements to your web browser. Whether you use Safari or Chrome on your Mac, you can easily customize any browser’s interface with Christmas themed wallpapers.
Your best bet for a Google Chrome Christmas skin that you would really love is to upload a picture from your Mac. We checked the Chrome Web Store, but it took a few minutes to find a remotely Christmas-themed background, and even the one we found didn’t particularly appeal to us.
However, each of these 8K wallpaper sites gives you a larger pool of images to choose from. Once you’ve downloaded one you like, launch Google Chrome and locate it To edit Button in the bottom right corner of the home page that prompts “Customize this page”.
After choosing the downloaded image as your new Chrome wallpaper, don’t forget to select an appropriate theme color in the Customize this page window.
The process is very similar in Safari. If you need additional help, follow our step-by-step guide to customizing the Safari home page in macOS.
6. Use a Santa hat memoji as your profile picture
With Memojis, Apple has breathed some life into profile pictures. You can easily customize an animated character with as many of its features as the settings allow. And you can finish with a fun little detail – a Santa hat.
Just go to system settings, select your profile and click on the profile picture to edit it. Choose your Memoji and click on it To edit. This is where you customize every little detail of your Memoji character, from skin color to headgear.
You can find Santa’s hat in the headgear Category – just scroll down to the last line. Select it and set the primary color to red and the secondary colors to white.
Create your own festive atmosphere
With Christmas just around the corner, you can start making small changes to help you feel festive. We showed you how to add some snow and Christmas cheer to your Mac to get you in the holiday spirit every time you use it.
But that’s just the beginning of a long list of things you can do to get in the mood for Christmas, like watching Christmas movies or listening to Christmas carols.
