Alexa Has a Santa Claus Voice, Here’s How to Enable It

Tis the season, which is why Amazon has a special voice for Alexa. While the company added a bunch of celebrity voices last year, this new one is the most famous of all — Santa Claus. Here’s how to use the Santa Claus voice on Alexa.

Update, 12/16/22: Checked content for accuracy, product availability, and dead links.

Once enabled, users can enjoy all sorts of holiday cheer with Santa. For example, you can ask St. Nick to sing a song or get specific and say, “Alexa, sing Jingle Bells.” Or, try asking, “Hey Santa, am I naughty or nice?” and your kids will get a slew of questions to answer, which may determine if they’re getting fun presents or a pile of coal under the tree.

How to Enable Santa Claus Voice on Alexa

If you want Alexa to respond to voice commands as St. Nick, or enjoy several other fun new festive features, simply say, “Alexa, enable ‘Hey Santa,'” and you’ll be all set. Or, you can click here, and tap enable to get started. Additionally, if you have an Echo device in Kids mode, open that device’s settings section in the Alexa app, scroll down to the wake word section, and turn on “Hey Santa.”

As a reminder, if you have multiple Alexa devices, you’ll have to manually enable the Santa Claus voice on each device using the command mentioned above.

This feature is only available for those in the United States and the UK.

Try These Alexa Santa Voice Commands

While songs and fun questions about being naughty or nice are fantastic, Alexa’s Santa Claus voice can do a lot more than that. Here’s a list of commands you’ll want to try this wintery season.

“Hey Santa, what can you do?”
“Hey Santa, tell me about your reindeer.”
“Hey Santa, can you laugh?”
“Hey Santa, what is your favorite food?”
“Hey Santa, happy holidays.”
“Hey Santa, Merry Christmas”
“Hey Santa, let’s dance.”
“Hey Santa, tell me a joke.”
“Hey Santa, let’s play a game.”
“Hey Santa, give me advice.”

Which Devices Work With Santa?

According to Amazon, the Santa Claus voice works with almost all Echo devices available, except the first-generation Echo, Echo Dot, and wearables. Unfortunately, this fun voice option doesn’t work on Fire Tablets or the Fire TV. Amazon said those last two “are not supported at this time,” meaning we could see them added later or next year.

It looks like most Alexa features work with this new voice, and it’ll even sing some music playlists in Santa’s voice, which is weirdly awesome. Either way, give it a try this holiday season and bring a little extra cheer to your home or office.

via The Verge