How Google Gemini Stole Christmas

'Twas four days before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring except for my two six-year-olds bouncing off walls. "Dad! Can we ask Google to call Santa?!?" they begged with the wild-eyed excitement only children possess. How could I deny them? "Go for it, kids. It's always delightful..."

So off to the Google Home Hub they dashed in a flash, tearing through the kitchen and shouting their plea: "Hey Google, call Santa!" But what to our wondering ears should we hear? Not the jolly response we'd been expecting this year. The newly migrated Gemini, in the British voice I'd selected, politely informed us: "Sorry, I can't call Santa on this device yet."

Excuse me?

For the past five years, the Google Home Hub in our kitchen has been more than a tool for streaming music, answering questions, setting cooking timers, and controlling smart home lights; it's been a source of joy and wonder for my children. Once I showed them how to call Santa at Christmas years ago, they'd gleefully summon him not just in December, but year-round. The screen on the Google Home Hub added a magical touch, with visuals dancing across it. It really was fantastic and something my family loved to use.

Beyond calling Santa, the kids would attack Google with questions daily and, whenever they needed entertainment, ask it for jokes. Now, with the migration from Google Assistant to Gemini, the experience is diminished. And I'm not alone in noticing this (and the disappointment that came with it), as other users on Reddit have discovered our access to Santa is now gone.

This past weekend, after several failed attempts to call Santa, my daughter turned to me with a question filled with child-like innocence: "Why isn't Google fun anymore? Can you fix it?" Suddenly, I'm a 21st-century George Bailey desperately trying to fix Zuzu's petals, except in this case, I can't fool my daughter into believing everything's okay. Sure, I can download some third-party "Call Santa" app on my phone, but it won't be the same. It won't be the experience she fell in love with. This Christmas, thanks to Gemini, a little bit of that magic is gone.

Look, I understand this is the price of progress. We've griped about Google Assistant's limitations on Home devices in recent years, so the migration to Gemini makes sense on paper. But it's not the infrastructure upgrades that matter most. It's those little surprise-and-delight moments that Google used to nail. The dashes of personality and whimsy that help us build genuine connections to our technology. We're getting less and less of that. The recent success of Nano Banana is probably the closest thing we've had in a while. Sure, the AI-generated image generation technology is impressive, but it's that delightfully wacky product name that bridges the gap from cold tech to warm personal connection.

I did discover you can ask Gemini, "What's going on at the North Pole," which triggers a somewhat fun report about elves... immediately followed by a deadly serious summary of global warming. Exactly what every six-year-old wants to hear on Christmas week. All of it was presented as a boring wall of text on the screen. Not exactly the holiday cheer we once had.

We've reached out to Google about this issue, but they haven't gotten back to us (yet). Hopefully, Google is aware of this regression and is working to make Gemini on Google Home more personable. Maybe next year, my daughter can reclaim a little of that Google Christmas magic she once knew.