How ChatGPT’s Christmas Easter Egg turns your selfie into a Santa message
This Christmas, OpenAI has a surprise for you. With just an emoji prompt, ChatGPT will be able to create a holiday video for you. Here is how it works.
OpenAI’s Sam Altman has an early Christmas surprise for ChatGPT users, and it all starts with a single emoji. What looks like an innocent gift box () has turned out to be the key to one of the most delightful AI Easter eggs of the year, unlocking a personalized festive video straight from Santa. The secret feature, which quietly rolled out over the weekend, has inspired users to try it out. It’s playful, unpredictable, and perfect for the holiday season, proof that artificial intelligence can also get into the Christmas spirit.
It all started with a cryptic post from Altman on X (formerly Twitter). Without much explanation, the OpenAI chief asked users to try ChatGPT with just one emoji. Naturally, there was no need to explain the Internet twice. Within a few hours, users discovered that sending gift emojis to ChatGPT triggered a surprising response and a little digital Christmas magic.
Once an emoji is sent, ChatGPT responds by asking users to upload or take a selfie. After that, the magic happens behind the scenes. The chatbot sends the image to Sora, OpenAI’s powerful video generation model, which transforms the selfie into a short, personalized Christmas video. The chatbot takes 5 minutes to create a video.
In the resulting clip, Santa Claus himself takes center stage, greeting the user and offering a cheeky summary of their year in review. Whether you’ve been nice or naughty determines your tone and the present you get. Some users found Santa filling them with praise and gifts they actually liked, while others found the verdict more humorous, with Santa jokingly handing out lumps of coal or ridiculously inappropriate items.
For now, the feature appears to be limited to one video per account. Attempting to repeat the process in a new chat will not give you the second clip; ChatGPT simply replays the same. However, some users claim that festive emojis like Santa or a Christmas tree can also unlock variations of the same Christmas surprise.
The videos are completely AI-generated, and users have no creative control over what happens. Sora handles everything from the story and visuals to the tone of Santa’s message. This unpredictability is part of the fun, making it feel like the AI is actually “deciding” whether you’ve been good or bad this year.
Beyond the fun and festive excitement, this little experiment offers a glimpse of what’s next for ChatGPT. By combining text, images, and now video through Sora, OpenAI is showing how its tools can create richer, more interactive experiences. It’s a reminder that generative AI should be all serious work and no play. Sometimes, it’s just about having a little Christmas fun, and maybe even having a few laughs over Santa’s digital decisions.
As users continue to share their Santa videos on social media, one thing is clear: OpenAI has managed to wrap its technical wizardry into a nice little holiday gift. All you need is an emoji to open it.
