When I was in high school, I had an art teacher who bemoaned the negative space a blank television presented in a room. To solve the problem, she placed her TV in a cabinet and hid it behind wood doors. While her solution doesn’t work for me, I understand her frustration.

However, with the advent of smart TVs and all our ‘systems’- TV, phone, computers, sound systems, stereos, etc- being interconnected, hiding my television is no longer a necessity. The last couple years, I’ve resorted to putting on a YuleLog. We really like the crackling and flickering of the flames as the logs are consumed by the fire. 

This year, we’ve discovered several YouTube channels that offer even more variety for the holiday season (and all year round, too). 

I have enjoyed these channels so much this year that I want to share them with you all, dear readers. 

Calmed By Nature

This channel is fantastic. With so many people either electing to stay home or being forced to in lockdowns throughout the world, this channel will provide you with several screensavers of various coffee house scenes. For the purpose of this post, I’ll mention the coffee shop. I so enjoy a wonderful coffee shop, don’t you? Calmed By Nature has one entitled Cozy Christmas Coffee Shop with Smooth Jazz Christmas Music, Crackling Fire, and Cafe Sounds. It really does feel like the perfect cafe scene. I think you will enjoy having this scene on your TV while you decorate your tree, read through some Christmas cards or a seasonal themed novel, or cook and devour all those holiday delicacies we deny ourselves the rest of the year.

There are other fun Christmas scenes. Several outdoor scenes showcase lovely decorated homes with Christmas lights or cathedrals swathed in snow with bells ringing. I find I enjoy the Christmas Ambience: purring cat, crackling fire, falling snow. Given the title of this website, and the fact that my home is home to seven felines, this preference should come as no surprise to you. There’s also A Journey to the North Pole and Home Alone Christmas Party Ambience if you’re looking for some other fun scene.

And, when Christmastide is over, Calmed By Nature provides many other screensavers for the whole year round. My favorite is the writer’s room with windows overlooking a forest covered mountainside. Rain is falling steadily. A cat - who looks like my Zucchini- is curled up on the bed, purring occasionally. And the clattering of a typewriter is heard beside a roaring fire. It’s called Remote Fire Lookout Tower, and I think you might enjoy checking it out.

New Bliss

I use this YouTube channel when I don’t have a particular yen to hear my own Christmas music on our stereo. Ordinarily I opt for a screensaver that does not have music as I do enjoy my collection of Christmas albums. However, if I’m just doing some quick chores around the house and haven’t fired up our old reliable stereo system, this is the channel I go to.

New Bliss has a variety of Christmas themed scenes. You can check out their coffee shop or travel to a winter hut or a cozy cabin. Regardless of which one you choose, I believe you will find one that you will enjoy. They usually have a Live video going, so you can tune in for several hours without the interruption of commercials which is all the rage now on YouTube. As I write, Christmas Ambience is Live, but they do switch the videos up, so if could be Cozy Christmas Coffee Shop or Wood Cabin Ambience when you tune in.

And while I do include it here because I’m talking about screensavers that invoke Christmas with all it’s traditional scenes, what I appreciate most about this channel are the screensavers that depict libraries. Ancient libraries, royal libraries, libraries, libraries, libraries. As you no doubt know, I’m a little ole bookworm who still gets giddy when she sees the Beast’s library in Beauty and the Beast. So, Royal Library or Old Library Sounds will be on my TV’s screen in the coming month to be sure. 

And even though I haven’t checked it out yet, I’m looking forward to trying Train Ambience- Relaxing Train Journey with Rain.

Nature and Relaxation

The title of this channel is pretty self-explanatory. Each scene has elements of nature that are there to help you relax. I’ve really enjoyed some of these, particularly the ones where there’s a blizzard raging outside. Since moving to the South, I have keenly missed the snowstorms of the North. And while there’s a slim possibility that we might just have a white Christmas here this year, it’s still not the same as the snowfall that I grew up with. These scenes provide me that nostalgia. 

As I write this, they have five different live streams going, all involving blizzard sounds. One is used to help invoke sleep. Another is decidedly Christmas themed with a tree in a beautiful living room with a lovely fire crackling. Each of them also have a pet somewhere, whether it’s a purring cat or a snoozing dog. As a pet owner, I really like that element.

Truth be told, there are numerous living room scenes. Each room is a different configuration. Nature and Relaxation also caters to all sorts of interior preferences, too.

And, like the two previous ones, Nature and Relaxation offer scenes you can use all year round. I particularly like to have the ones with rain and thunderstorms. My favorite one that I’ve found on this channel is Autumn in Woodstock Vermont- Sleepy Hollow Farm Ambience. I think it’s the literary lover in me.

Ma Ambience: Virtual Tourism

This channel offers a fun twist. Like all the previous ones, there are Christmas scenes, but along with the traditional ones you’d expect- living rooms with crackling fires and Christmas trees twinkling- Ma Ambience breaks down these scenes to locales. If you’re hankering to spend Christmas in an opulent train caboose, Ma Ambience has you covered. Or perhaps you want to know what Christmas in a penthouse in New York City or London would be like, Ma Ambience has you covered there too. 

Any Harry Potter fans out there? They have a scene titled Harry Potter Christmas Ambience. Perhaps, like me, you’d like to recreate all the glamorous 1940s Christmases you’ve watched in movies or read in historical fiction. There’s a scene for that, too: Winter Ambience New York 1940s with Fireplace and Music. Maybe you love the traditional Christmas that the Nutcracker Suite provides. Ma Ambience has a scene for you, too: Christmas Music Nutcracker Tchaikovsky Winter Ambience.

Or if Christmas just isn’t your thing, Ma Ambience has you covered there, too. You can relax in a cozy room at DisneyWorld with fireworks going off in the distance. Or if you want to go a little more literary, Ma Ambience has a Medieval (which includes scenes from The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter) and a Cafe playlist. Or if you just want to go out of this world, there’s even a Sci-fi/Spaceship playlist. 

Ma Ambience is a worth channel to explore. I think of all the ones I’ve shared with you today, this is my favorite one. My favorite scene is Jane Austen ASMR Ambience Village Rain with Birds Sounds. Given the amount of posts I’ve done about Jane Austen (see the inks below) and the fact that her birthday is in December, I think this scene qualifies as a Christmas one regardless of birds chirping outside or the fact that there is obvious springtime greenery out the window.

I hope, dear readers, that you take some time to explore these channels and pick a few screensavers to enjoy. And if there’s one that you find that you particularly like, please leave a comment and share it with us all.