Holiday apps that'll make your Grinchmas merry
My wife is probably one of the biggest Grinch fans out there. Yes, we have Grinch holiday decorations and end up watching the movies several times throughout the holiday season. We're sitting at 3 times already... I'm praying we don't pass 5. It's not that I don't like The Grinch -- the animated or Jim Carrey version -- I'm usually not a multiple viewing kind of guy.
To help fuel her love -- or obsession -- the folks over at Oceanhouse Media have partnered with Dr. Seuss Enterprises to fill our holiday minds with the Grinch. The first app in the iTunes App Store is called "Grinchmas" [iTunes Link]. It's a simple game where you choose to be a mean or a merry Grinch. I, of course, chose to be mean the first time around... I found myself throwing snowballs at noisy houses with a goal of keeping the noise meter from reaching its max. Next, I tried the merry side: I was given presents and a timer and challenged to toss the most presents before the time ran out. It was a fun little game, good for true Grinch fans and a quick time waster but it's definitely not something that you're gonna play for hours on end.
They also created a pretty cool camera application that has a lot of pre-made greeting cards that you can email to your friends and family (the pic on this post is an example). It's called "Dr. Seuss Camera - The Grinch Edition" [iTunes Link] and is pretty awesome for sending fun cards to your friends. Unfortunately it's nearly impossible to line up the picture with the backgrounds if you're doing them yourself. It would have been nice of them to allow zoom and give you the ability to move your face to the correct spot: without that, you're pretty much limited to taking pictures of other people and sending them to your friends. My wife and I still had fun going through the different pictures and getting her to pose for the cards.
For those of you who have yet to be Grinch'd, Oceanhouse Media also has produced a visually stimulating e-book (it does the original justice) to go along with the Grinch-themed holidays. "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" [iTunes Link] is an interactive e-book that not only reads to you but plays sounds depending on what you touch on the screen. This is a great way to share a holiday classic with your kids. Read them the book, then let them play with the other two apps for a Grinch-tastic holiday. Don't forget to snag the movies too. My wife made me say that.
