Are you busy in the middle of the Christmas shopping rush? What about those annoying Christmas cards that have yet to be sent? Artificial intelligence can’t help you send the mail, but if you need to get the task of Christmas greetings done, whether online or offline, artificial intelligence (AI) can be very useful. This is particularly true since the launch of the chat tool called ChatGPT from OpenAI, which is all the rage right now.
At the end of 2023, we probably don’t have to explain what ChatGPT is to many people, but if you haven’t dared to use the tool yet, we’ll briefly explain what we’re dealing with first before getting down to the nitty-gritty of creating our Christmas greetings.
What is ChatGPT?
In the first version of this post from the end of 2022, I did what we all did back then when we reported about ChatGPT: We simply let the AI speak for itself. When I instructed it to “Describe in a few short sentences what ChatGPT is”, the artificial intelligence then responded with the following:
ChatGPT is a language model developed by OpenAI that allows it to process natural language and respond to an input. It is part of the GPT (Generative Pre-training Transformer) family of language models and was developed specifically for chat scenarios. ChatGPT is offered as part of the OpenAI API and can be called via an API key. It is able to generate human-like responses to questions and queries and can be used in various applications such as chatbots and voice assistants.
You can basically leave it right there. Okay, the answer isn’t quite accurate, but that’s not ChatGPT’s fault. After all, the AI has only been trained with texts until 2021 back then. The currently free tool available to everyone in the form of a simple-to-use chatbot did not exist in 2021.
The newer and better version, ChatGPT-4 includes access to the AI image generator software Dall-E, is subject to a fee and requires a hefty $20 a month for a subscription.
However, we are content with version 3.5, which is still free to use. Since OpenAI made the ChatGPT beta public at the end of November 2022, millions of people have used this exciting software and even made it the most used app ever in the USA. If you want to get started now, follow these steps:
- Go to https://bit.ly/3BUHXnI and create an account. You can either use your Google or Windows account, or create one using your e-mail address.
- Verify the account using the email sent to you.
- Use the input line below to create texts. Be creative!
Whatever you enter in the input line is your “prompt”. In other words, it is a command that ChatGPT has to follow. You speak to the AI as you wish, letting you formulate your wishes according to your personal preference.
You can let your imagination run wild here: Display pro and con lists for food, ask for poems or crime stories, invent text adventures, or commission essays. By the way, it doesn’t have to be pure text. You can also ask for spreadsheets, or even have programming code created for you. Please let us know in the comments if you want us to tell you more about ChatGPT.
How to write your Christmas greetings with ChatGPT
While I’m still wondering how long it will take for ChatGPT to take over my job at nextpit, we’re getting down to the nitty-gritty. After all, we want ChatGPT to write the Christmas greetings we’ve been struggling with so far. So use the input line again and write something like: “Make me some suggestions for texts I can use for my Christmas cards.”
The AI’s response to this very general prompt was:
Gladly! Here are some suggestions for Christmas greetings that you can use in your Christmas cards:
- “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!”
- “We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!”
- “Let yourself be enchanted by the Christmas season and enjoy the special atmosphere with your loved ones.”
- “We wish you a reflective and peaceful Christmas season.”
- “May this Christmas season be full of joy and happiness for you and your family.”
I hope these suggestions help you! If you are looking for more specific ideas or suggestions, please let me know. I will do my best to help you further.
So ChatGPT granted my wish, but in this case, provided pretty plain answers. Fortunately, you can ask the AI to make the answers more specific. Ask for longer, more contemplative, funnier greetings. You don’t have to start over because ChatGPT recognizes the context. Again, just play around with ChatGPT to get the most appropriate results.
After the results above, I wrote: “Thank you, can it be a bit more detailed and with some humor?” This time, the answers were:
Of course! Here are some more suggestions for Christmas greetings with a little more humor:
- “Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Hope you have enough room on your plate for all those delicious Christmas cookies.”
- “We wish you a reflective and peaceful Christmas season – and hopefully enough rest to recover from all the cookies and Christmas punch.”
- “May this Christmas season be full of joy, happiness and (perhaps a little chaos) for you and your family.”
- “We wish you a wonderful holiday season and hope you have enough patience to unwrap all the presents and read the instructions for the new toys.”
- “We wish you a Merry Christmas and hope you have enough time to relax with your loved ones and watch all the Christmas movies you want.”
I hope you enjoy these suggestions and that they give you some inspiration when designing your Christmas cards! If you need any more ideas or suggestions, please let me know. I will be happy to help you further.
By the way, you can also add AI-generated images to your season’s greetings. For the Santa image above with a table full of cookies, I used the NightCafe tool. It is one of countless image creation tools and requires a few credits to create images based on your prompts.
However, these credits are also available for free by performing simple daily tasks like logging in. Please let us know in the comments if you would like to know more about image generators and prompts, and we will be happy to write a post about it.
Moving on to our Christmas greetings: You can already see from the examples above: The simpler your question, the more general and boring the answers. So if you want to elicit more exciting results from ChatGPT, formulate your request as specifically as possible. Try the following prompt, which you can copy and paste into the input window:
Be my greeting card writer. Create Christmas greetings for [input: name]. Compose a heartfelt and unique Christmas greeting that is connected to my emotions. This message needs to go beyond traditional wishes and feel personal. The aim is to make the recipient feel very special, as if the message was tailor-made just for them.
Make sure that the greeting message radiates genuine Christmas spirit and evokes a feeling of connection and joy. Avoid clichés and common phrases and opt for original and thoughtful wording that reflects the uniqueness of the relationship. Capture the essence of the season and let the recipient feel the warmth of my heartfelt wishes.
Mix these wishes with humor. Remember that the goal is to spread joy and cheer while respecting and honoring everyone’s beliefs and traditions. Keep the tone casual. It must not be formal.
Do not exceed 130 words. Keep strictly to the word limit. I would like you to automatically ask me what the recipient’s name is and what our relationship is. I will then answer something like “Stefan, work colleague” and you will then include this information in your proposal. After your suggestion, automatically ask me for the next person. Do you understand so far?
Spoiler: Yes, of course, ChatGPT understood and answered dutifully:
Of course, I get it! Before I begin, I’d like to know what the recipient’s name is and what your relationship is.
Now I enter: Dennis, good friend, drinking buddy, and former colleague. I then received the following suggestion:
Dear Dennis,
In this festive season, which is full of sparkle and joy, I send you warm greetings! Our Christmas adventures, whether in the office or celebrating, have given me so many smiling memories. May your heart be as lit up as the Christmas tree and your days as bright as festive lights.
Your laughter to me is like the perfect Christmas carol that lights up my soul. This year, I want to send you more than just presents – I’m sending you warmth, joy and the memory of countless moments together.
Cheers, my drinking buddy, to a festive season full of laughter and unforgettable moments!
Sincerely, [your name]
Regardless of the fact Dennis would have punched me in the face for such a pompous greeting, ChatGPT followed my instructions to the letter. Even better, you can now continue by simply stating the name and the relationship, such as: “Stefan, colleague”.
You can then follow this pattern person by person. If necessary, simply enter additional information such as “godmother of my child”, etc. to make the results more personal. As mentioned before, there are no limits to your imagination.
ChatGPT does this in a matter of seconds, so it can help you out if the results are not to your liking. Try it out today! You can even ask ChatGPT to write the cleverest prompts possible. Be creative, play around with the software, and be patient. The more precise you formulate your request, the more outstanding the results will be.
Please let us know if you have achieved any cool results. Do you prefer to rely on your imagination? Or maybe you don’t write Christmas greetings at all? Please let us know in the comments! One thing though, please write your own comments and not let ChatGPT do it because I can smell comments by ChatGPT from a mile away! 😉
