5 Open-Source & Free Software Projects to Celebrate Christmas —And Support Via Kivach

The holiday season seems like a great time to mix creativity, generosity, and technology. Around GitHub, you’ll find plenty of open-source and free projects that capture the Christmas spirit: from animated light displays and festive games to apps that help plant trees or organize gift exchanges. They’re built by people who simply love to share what they create.

With Kivach, supporting them is easier than ever. This open platform, based on Obyte, lets you donate cryptocurrency directly to any GitHub project you care about. It’s fast, decentralized, and perfect for spreading some digital goodwill. A small contribution can help keep these joyful ideas alive while celebrating the season in a way that gives back to the open-source community.

Now, let’s explore some festive software!

Secret Santa

Few things say “holiday teamwork” like the annual gift exchange. Back in the winter of 2015, developer Maël Nison decided to make that experience simpler and more stylish, and created Secret Santa Planner, a cheerful web tool that helps groups organize gift swaps without confusion. It’s available in English and French and keeps the focus on the fun part: who gives to whom. It was built with Christmas in mind, but it works just as well for office parties, family gatherings, or any event that needs a little mystery and generosity.

The tool’s charm lies in its simplicity. You just add names, set a few rules, and it randomly pairs people up. Each participant gets a private link with a colorful letter showing who they’ll be buying for, making the process quick and secret. Everything runs directly in the browser, hosted through GitHub Pages (a service that lets developers publish static websites straight from their code), meaning there’s no need for user accounts or servers. It’s easy to use, share, and trust.

Today, Secret Santa Planner keeps its warm community feel. Maël maintains it publicly on GitHub, where anyone can report ideas or bugs. There’s no business model behind it, just goodwill. Users can leave a kind message or send a one-time sponsorship as a thank-you. If you want to send a crypto tip, Kivach could be your best alternative.

WishThis

In 2022, developer Jay Trees released WishThis, a sleek platform designed to make gift planning effortless. It helps people collect their wishes for any occasion, but it feels right at home during the holidays when finding the perfect present can be a puzzle. Available in 99 languages, it’s built to be shared with family and friends, so everyone knows what will make you smile while avoiding duplicate gifts.

WishThis is packed with practical features. You can create, manage, and share wish lists that automatically hide items once they’ve been “claimed” by someone else, keeping surprises intact. Every wish can be described with a URL, image, priority, and price. This web-based tool can even be paired with Secret Santa Planner, since you can link your list and let your anonymous gift-giver browse without spoiling the mystery.

Jay maintains the project with the help of users who contribute code, tests, translations, or sponsor development through GitHub Sponsors. It also earns small commissions through Amazon affiliate links, a non-intrusive way to keep the project sustainable. No ads, no trackers, just a collaborative effort that turns gift-giving into something joyful and simple. Find it useful? Send them some love with Kivach.

Advent Calendar

An advent calendar is a classic countdown to Christmas, revealing a little surprise each day from December 1 until December 24. Some of them, physically, offer chocolates and other gifts every day. Developer Nicolas Devenet brought that same anticipation online in 2013 with his own Advent Calendar. This small, lightweight app lets you display a new image, message, or even a short video each day leading up to the holidays.

Whether you use it to share family photos, daily greetings, or company surprises, it adds a sense of ritual and fun to the digital space. You just upload your pictures or clips, name them by day, and let the app do the rest. Each box opens to reveal a hidden image and an optional caption, just like the cardboard calendars many grew up with.

Advanced customization is also available, from the title and background image to the number of days you want to display. It can even be turned into a simple countdown calendar for birthdays, launches, or any special occasion. With cryptocurrencies in the picture, you can also include some new wallets or Obyte Textcoins as gifts.

The project is still active and regularly updated on GitHub, where users can download it or share improvements. Nicolas maintains it as a personal creation, welcoming feedback through comments and issue reports rather than formal funding. Kivach can be used to send him some cryptos if you like this project. \n

Led Games

Have you ever thought about playing Tic-Tac-Toe or the snake game… on your Christmas tree? Well, in 2019, the developer Jordy Moos sure did and found a way to make it possible. He built the software for it and shared it with everyone on GitHub, along with a lengthy video tutorial. It’s not exactly a plug-and-play process, but it could become a fun activity for Christmas.

https://x.com/JordyMoos/status/1206568610275241984?embedable=true

Led games start with hardware. Anyone willing to build their own gamified Christmas tree will need a WS2811 LED light strip, a microcontroller Teensy 3.2 with extension board, some Ethernet cables, a Raspberry Pi microcomputer, some wire connectors, a DC 5-volt power supply, and a Raspberry Pi camera. All of these are low-cost, small devices easily available online. Paired with Jordy’s code and Teensyduino to control the Teensy, the final result after following the assembly instructions will be an LED game on your tree, connected to your video game controller.

Of course, this is a personal project, but it’s open to anyone who may want to contribute on GitHub. If you wish to send some thank-you coins, Kivach is there for you.

EcoRaiz

The felling of Christmas trees each year may not seem quite ecological, but the truth is a real tree is more beneficial than a fake one —for everyone, not just for us humans. In reality, it promotes the conservation of various ecosystems, the creation of green jobs, and, at the same time, prevents the waste of non-recyclable materials. You can even go and plant a few trees yourself in places in need of them, and we all will be winning. The app EcoRaiz, created in 2025 by Surya Narayanan, could help us with it.

This is a smart planting platform designed to identify where new trees can grow best, helping turn dry or deforested areas into green spaces again. A digital way to “give back” to the planet after the holiday season. The system is simple to use: you upload a top-view photo of a piece of land, input basic details like temperature, humidity, and soil pH (that’s a measure of how acidic or alkaline the soil is), and EcoRaiz analyzes it all to recommend long-living tree species that fit each micro-area.

The software is still in active development, hosted on GitHub, and welcoming both environmental experts and coders to contribute. It runs without corporate funding and relies on community input. If you want to be part of the building process, you can contribute with code or send them a crypto donation via Kivach.

Send and Receive Good Wishes

If you want to spread some digital holiday cheer, donating through Kivach is easy. First, install and fund an Obyte wallet with any Obyte-compatible token (basically, most of the popular ones are available through the Counterstake Bridge). Then, go to the Kivach website, search for a GitHub repository you want to support, choose how much and what token to donate, and send it. Even if the project’s owner hasn’t set up a thing yet, your donation safely waits for them to be informed —don’t forget to tell them!

For developers, receiving donations is just as smooth. You’ll need to link your GitHub account to your Obyte wallet using the GitHub Attestation chatbot. This confirms you’re the real repo owner. From there, you can set how you want to distribute donations: keep them all or share a part automatically with other projects that power yours. It’s a simple, transparent way to get rewarded for your code while supporting the open-source chain that keeps it alive.

Merry Christmas, and happy giving! Check other interesting open-source projects below.

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