Christmas is just around the corner, and I’ve been working on setting up a fantastic Christmas Mode for my smart home! 
I wanted to share my experience and some tips in case anyone else is looking to do something similar.
I started by focusing on my living room media player, which is a Sony Songpal device. The goal was to automate playing Christmas music through my media player. Initially, I thought it would be straightforward using the media_player.play_media service, but I encountered some hurdles.
The device reports its state with details like media_content_id and media_content_type, so I tried creating a script with those values. However, running the script didn’t play anything. After some research, I realized that additional parameters like app_id might be needed, but passing them wasn’t straightforward.
I discovered that using the enqueue: play option in the service call could help, but it didn’t work as expected. It either stopped the current playback or did nothing. This was a bit frustrating, but I kept experimenting and found that manually browsing the media library and playing the desired album worked perfectly.
For others looking to automate Christmas music, here’s what I recommend:
- Test manually first: Ensure your media player can play the desired content through the UI before trying to automate it.
- Check device support: Make sure your device supports the necessary services and parameters.
- Use the correct media format: Ensure the media_content_id and type match exactly what the device expects.
I’m still tweaking my setup, but it’s been a fun project. I’d love to hear how others have automated their Christmas modes—whether it’s lights, music, or something else entirely! 
