Christmas on the Web
Christmas is a very well celebrated time around the globe and this is reflected by the amount of different, festive websites that appear around Christmas time. From the tackiest of falling snowfalls through to the most imaginative of Christmas website ideas, you see it all on the web around Christmas - whether by accident or by looking for a specific site.
An example of a well known novelty Christmas website idea of the "falling snowflakes" is executed very well on Google. When you search "let it snow", the google search results page starts to snow over and eventually ends up frosted over, this then allows you to defrost the screen with your mouse in order to be able to see the screen again. This is a very well executed idea as Google have taken the falling snowflake idea and turned it into their own, unique idea that fits in very well with their website.
On the contrary to Googles Christmas idea, there are also a large number of websites which have been created just for Christmas with a specific idea in mind. One example of this is the NORAD Santa Tracker which was created just for children to track Santa on while they are waiting for him to visit them on Christmas Eve! Although this may not be one of the best designed websites around, it certainly is very popular with children as it allows them to view a Google map style tracker map, on which they can see at what point Santa is around the globe with little clips about each country that he is in to tell the children a little more about each country. I know from last year that my young cousin liked this and was sat staring at the laptop screen all evening, so it must be a success as it's an imaginative yet well executed idea that flows extremely well with the Christmas theme!
Another example is the "Elf Yourself" website. There are a lot of websites around that are like this at Christmas time but this one is one of the best designed ones. This site is very novelty - it lets you add pictures of a head of anything from yourself to one of your pets and puts it on top of a singing and dancing elf that goes alongside some novelty music. I know a lot of people (mostly children again) like to make these of themselves and their families and send them out to their friends for a little bit of fun around Christmas time. I know this site has been around for a pretty long time now so it must be popular - it is also extremely fun to use!
Although there are a large number of Christmassy sites that were created just for Christmas - the large majority of them are just for children. So, in conclusion - Christmas influences the web by bringing around a lot of novelty websites that really, are no use to any of us but are good to spent a little time on around the Christmas period.