Who doesn’t love Christmas carols? But who can remember all the words? Holiday Karaoke to the rescue!

This free app, published by Nokia, works like a tiny, if limited, karaoke system for Nokia S60 5th Edition devices. It plays background music to Christmas carols while displaying their lyrics in sync with the music. The app also highlights the right words as they are ready to be sung, just like a full-screen karaoke system you’d find in a bar or club.

But in fact, this is not one app, but two. Holiday Karaoke is currently available for two Christmas carols, and it requires that you download each carol separately. The two carols are ‘Jingle Bells’ and an English-language version of the German carol ‘O Tannenbaum’ (also known as ‘O Christmas Tree’). These two apps also let you share their Ovi links with friends and family via a pre-composed text message.

Both apps look about the same. First, the screen fills in with a snowy forest landscape. To start the songs, you press the ‘Let’s sing!’ button, as shown below:

In the next screen, you see one of two cartoon animations: either Santa Claus, surrounded by wrapped presents and conducting the music with mittened hands; or a group of five reindeers wagging their heads from side to side. The lyrics appear below in white letters. When it’s time to start singing, the appropriate words are highlighted red, as shown below (the highlighted letters are a touch blurry because they are animated):

When the music ends, you have the option of sharing the karaoke carol with friends or family via a text message link, as shown here:

Press ‘Send’, and you’re taken to a pre-formatted text message. All you have to do is type in the recipient’s phone number and send:

Closing the app is a little unusual. Rather than selecting ‘Exit’ from a menu, you press your devices’ red ‘End Call’ button. Unusual, but it works.

So how does Holiday Karaoke stack up? Well, for young children, it should be perfect. Teenagers, maybe not so much. The music is supplied by a somewhat cheesy synthesizer that had my own 15-year-old daughter snorting with derision. Also, it would be nice (and a bit more logical) if both carols were included in one app; that way, you wouldn’t have to conduct two separate downloads and installs to get both carols.

On the plus side, I especially liked having all the words to these carols in one handy place – and I mean all. Did you know there were multiple verses to ‘Jingle Bells’? Including one about the rider’s horse getting caught in a snow bank and overturning the sled? I didn’t, but I do now.

Holiday Karaoke – Jingle Bells and Holiday Karaoke – O Tannenbaum are both free on Ovi Store. Both run on Nokia S60 5th Edition devices with touch UI. And oh, what fun it is!