Best ways to use tech this holiday season

>> this morning on "today's digital life " the best tech tools for the holiday. the season is supposed to be about enjoying time with the family but a new yahoo.com survey found two-thirds of men and half of women say they'll remain plugged in. heather abbott, good to see you.

>> thanks for having me. happy holidays .

>> tell us what else the survey found.

>> 90. of the people we surveyed said technology makes the holidays less stressful and 40% said they couldn't make it through the holidays without technology.

>> you found and brought some fun ways to do this. and everybody scrambling for the inexpensive gift.

>> and the quirky gift for the person who has everything so there's this great site called f fivefor.com. anything for $5. these later cut christmas tree ornaments, pet pins, personalized golf balls , personalized guitar picks for $5, and another thing you can do, a lot of performers on the site, you could have someone dress up as santa and do a special greeting for your child, all on this site and buy gift cards , too, fivefor.com.

>> during this time of year we like to curl up and put in the dfd, " miracle on 34th street " or "it's a wonderful life ."

>> it's the time we want to sit around and watch the old classics. a new twist is using your ipad or your iphone to hook into something into now. it allows social tv to interact with your friends and family while you're watching it, even if you're not in the same room. it's so cool. it continues, so you load the app and it listens to what you are listening to, and then it tells you, okay, you're watching this show and these are the people who are watching it, and then you can connect with them and comment and interact, you can also hook into the stats of interesting data about the movies. you can do it with sporting event , tv shows . it's into now.

>> and swapping holiday cookie recipes.

>> that's a tradition, people go to cookie swaps, everyone is scrambling to make cookies. yahoo searches for christmas cookies are up 200%. instead of going to your average recipe site check out pintress.a.m., a visual and virtual pinboard and it's a collection of people's inspirational recipes, and images they're collecting so these are some christmas cookies we thought were great. pinterest.com, it's a visual record of all of this. a lot of people with do-it-yourself projects go on there and it's free.

>> a lot of people doing online giving.

>> it's a huge trend. the next generation, onlinegiving 2.0 is crowd funding. i like indygogo.com. it takes the idea instead of making a financial transaction you're actually making a personal connection to a cause so for example you go on there, and you can see one of the things on there right now is a group of friends who are trying to raise money for a woman who lost her two front teeth in a bicycle accident and they need to raise $10,000 to pay her bill. instead of giving to a big organization you're giving to the specific cause.

>> and last but not least, of course, holiday cards.

>> holiday cards and thank you notes.

>> yes, yes, very important.

>> so one new way to do that is to use your phone. there are some really cool apps that allow you to create a card on your phone and have it actually mailed. these are some of them right here. one of the apps i like is called red stamp. this is what you get in the mail. so you design it on your phone, you can use a photo from your photo library on your phone, create the card, and for $1.99 they send it to you. newest product allows you to pop out the picture, so they get a little gift that they can put in a frame, in the dashboard, in the mirror.

>> that's very nice.

>> they get the card and a gift.

>> nothing beats a handwritten note.

>> i agree but i think is cool.

>> on the go, it gives you a chance to do that.

>> get a picture of you with the gift.

>> or the cookies.

>> or the cookies.

>> heather abbott, thank you so much.

>>> still to come a royal to the rescue. prince harry runs to the aid of a friend who is getting