I get by with a little help from my SmartPhone

Putting together jigsaw puzzles, playing cards, and watching home videos are seemingly holiday past-times of...the past. Enjoying time with family over turkey and cranberry sauce has more or less become a matter of survival for many. And smartphone app companies are taking advantage of our short attention spans and loss of interest in watching Uncle Harry chug eggnog and sing Christmas carols.Whether you're belted into a minivan for hours, stuck sitting between your great-uncles at the holiday supper table, or just not sure how to plan your attack for Black Friday, there are mobile apps to get you through it, sane and sound.

Here to keep you sane, entertained, and organized are the latest, must-have apps for the holidays.

Specially for Thanksgiving, the top five apps you just have to have: http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/22/tech/mobile/thanksgiving-apps/index.html. Coloring books keep rugrats out of the kitchen, while grandma cooks like a gourmet with the $50.00 Professional Chef app. See, kids are quiet and you get to eat the best stuffing of your life--all because of your smartphone or tablet! It's like the stuff of dreams.

For the entire holiday season: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/11/holiday-survival-apps/all/1. With these, you can plan your holiday flight, create and share memories, handle cooking conversions with ease, and again, keep the kids, as the women in my family would say, "out of this damn kitchen!"

Now the question is: are these advances in smartphone technology going to bring us together or push us apart? Aren't the holidays about dogs and kids running everywhere, burning the the bird, and running head-first into Herberger's at 4 a.m. on Black Friday with no game plan at all? Isn't chaos what the Christmas season is all about? Or is this just my family?

Honestly, what did we do BEFORE we all had our own personal technology to keep us entertained? Technology is amazing, but it detracts from the whole point of the holidays. Some of these apps really are great tools, but does it bother anyone else that we need them to "survive" the holidays, rather than just enjoy this time of year without them? I will agree, however, that a 12 hour car ride might go by a little faster playing Angry Birds and Turkey Plucker than singing Jingle Bells and counting license plates.