Free Christmas video app

ElfYourself is a free video editing software from JibJab that lets users star in a holiday-themed dance video. Easy to use, this multimedia app comes with augmented reality filters that you can apply to your videos. It also allows you to share your creation to your social media profiles to spread Christmas cheer. However, while it makes video creation simple, the app comes with a lot of limitations that you don’t often find in video editors.

Dance video in a jiffy

What users need to know before downloading the app is that it does not work as most video editors. For one, you don’t need to shoot a video before using the app. Instead, what you need to do is take a picture using the built-in camera or select from your gallery. You can also choose from your Facebook or Instagram photos or from the app’s My Faces library, which stores the 20 previously-uploaded or captured pictures. Once done, you can position your face to fit the pre-provided elf images. As noted, ElfYourself supports up to five images.

To create the video, users need only to click the Let’s Dance button. From there, they can choose the song that they wanted to use. There are 19 songs available, which are a mix of pop and Christmas tunes. However, only two are free. You need to buy the rest, either one-by-one or by bulk. There is a preview option that allows you to see how the video looks like before saving it on your device. You can also share them to your Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube directly from the app.

While it is a video editor, ElfYourself does not allow users to edit the pre-provided videos. In fact, there are no editing functions in the app. Once you fit your face to the elf and choose the dance tune, you will only need to wait for the video processing to finish, and you’re done. The only “editing” you can do is add text on the bottom of the screen. Furthermore, the video quality is not that great despite the duration only lasting a few seconds.

Only for the holidays

All in all, ElfYourself is a good app to use if you want to send a fun video greeting for the holidays without exerting so much effort. The app is easy to use and only needs a few steps to create a video. However, beyond the short holiday clips, the app does not offer anything more. It does not allow you to create a video from scratch, and there are also no editing features. The app is only usable during the holiday season.

ElfYourself is back for 2013

The annual holiday tradition allows you to “elf” yourself and become the star of a personalized video featuring your photos on holiday dancing elves. Simply upload up to five photos of you, your friends, family and more from your camera roll or Facebook. Select a dance theme, and the app will generate a custom ElfYourself video that you can share via email or post on Facebook.

Happy Elfing!