This holiday season we bring you the apps you never knew you needed. While our selection includes apps just for fun, most are downright helpful and will keep you organized. If you’re prone to keeping too many balls up in the air—we see you, AEC marketers—a little less stressed.

Elfster: The Secret Santa App

Though marketed for the Christmas season, the Elfster app allows you to create, share, and manage wish lists for any occasion; browse the most current shopping trends; generate secret gift arrangements where everyone is matched up; and view curated gift guides.

It helps streamline the gift-searching-and-brainstorming process while making it easier to know what to gift others—you can share with people both inside and outside of the app, making it an organization tool with no complications.

ElfYourself

Ever seen those videos where people add their photos to animated videos and watch their assigned figurine do silly things? ElfYourself is just that, but in app form, and it’s a fantastic activity with laughter-inducing results that can be shared across platforms or in your own family room.

With up to 5 faces and dozens of videos, you and your family—even your dog—can be dancing elves with just the snap of a picture.

Google Calendar

While Google Calendar is definitely not a holiday exclusive, it’s ideal for the season, nonetheless. If you’re unfamiliar or you already have it but haven’t used it in a while, here’s a rundown of what it’s especially useful for as the hectic holidays come closer:

• Scheduling across google platforms—any holiday events or obligations can be added from gmail, texts, and more to make it easy to see everything at once; google calendar is compatible with Exchange and iCloud as well.
• Sharing calendars—create a joint calendar that can be shared between family members or friends and will allow all members to keep track of engagements along with you.
• Creating task lists—break your days down into bite-sized pieces to make them more manageable and get what you need to done; sharing these is caring also, allowing collaboration on what needs to get done.
• Scheduling events—Google Calendar comes with templates and suggestions that make the entire process easier than learning how to whistle.

The Christmas List ($2.99)

The Christmas List allows you to keep track of the smaller details—namely: gifts. It provides progress tracking, sorting them by “to do,” “purchased,” “shipping,” “received,” and “wrapped.” It keeps track of your budget or allows you to set budgets by individual - as many as needed ($100 minimum for my sister Kathy, $30 maximum for neighbor Louis) while also maintaining a shopping overview. You can import from your contacts, share your lists, organize by store, add photos, password lock your information, and more.

Overall, it’s an incredibly competent organizer designed to make the balls you’re juggling easier to catch.

During your “kick back and relax” time this month, scroll through these apps that are designed to help you—or just make you smile.