Five Holiday Mac OS X Apps that will spread cheer all over your desktop

Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone, OSXDaily.com thought it would be fitting to compile of list of holiday cheer spreading Mac OS X applications. Some of the apps we came across will definitely make you chuckle, while others offer a very nice, subtle addition to your Desktop for the month of December. With rising energy costs why not save some money and throw some lights up on your desktop as apposed to all over your house? Certainly at least one of these applications will quench your thirst for holiday spirit on your Macintosh!

Update 12/3/2007: Try looking at the updated Christmas and Holiday Mac OS X apps to deck your Mac out this holiday season!

1. MacLampsX (developer’s site) (screenshot)

MacLampsX has long been a personal favorite of mine, and since its conception it has only improved. With 2.0 around the corner which is going to offer universal binary and multiple desktop support, now is a better time than ever to try out this wonderful application from the Arctic Mac. Version 1.1.1 is PowerPC only but runs perfectly on a MacBook Pro, taking as little as 2.0% of the cpu. Running MacLampsX isn’t going to raise your power bill, so hurry up and get those lights up!

2. Christmas Lights – Dashboard (developer’s site) (screenshot)

If having lights up full time is holiday spirit overload, give this nifty little dashboard widget a chance. Every time you have a craving for some blinking light action, just hit F12 and you’re in business. This well developed widget offers multiple light patterns, different colors and is very easy on the cpu. You won’t blow a fuse running this widget and it won’t annoy the neighbors, which makes Christmas Lights for the Dashboard a worthwhile download.

3. Snow for Mac OS X (developer’s site) (screenshot)

Snow for Mac OS X is yet another classic holiday application which has its roots in a program called “xsnow” for *nx/X11. Have no fear, theres no unix-bearded junkies included in the .sit, just snow, polar bears and Santa bringing Holiday Spirit to your desktop in a clever and well implemented way. Sadly this application has obviously been naughty and not nice, as it is still only PowerPC. But of course, Rosetta handles it just fine, and it runs quite well on a MacBook Pro.

4. Frosted Screensaver (developer’s site) (screenshot)

Frosted, The Screensaver offers a very well put together holiday scene during those times you aren’t using your Mac. But be warned, while your away from your Mac, baking cookies, or whatever you do, mute the volume! This writer was nearly shaken from his sleigh when a bizarre computerized voice rambled nonsense about “frosted snow” over my speakers. It definitely gave me a laugh and for that very reason I felt it absolutely had to be a part of this list. Check it out!

5. Snow Globe (developer’s site) (screenshot)

For those times during the Holidays you’ve had a little egg nog and feel like zoning out, download Snow Globe and shake it up to your heart’s content. Snow Globe offers some decent graphics and simple ideas that can actually be highly entertaining. Basically when you open the application you are presented with a Snow Globe, that when you click it, it “shakes up” and you watch snow fall over a traditional holiday tree scene. Of course it ultimately serves no purpose other than entertainment (like every other item on this list) but it’s time killer potential makes it bandwidth well spent.

6. X-MasTree – Don’t forget a Christmas tree for your desktop! See our post here

7. Mac OS X Holiday and Christmas app fun – the top three Mac holiday apps

There you have it, thats our round-up of holiday applications, enjoy! If any of you guys reading this article know of an application for Mac OS X that should be on this list, let us know in the comments and we will add it.