You can make a Diwali video card with your own family in it on Tangy Limes. It's called Festival of Lights: you upload a photo, three faces from it go onto three dancers, and they sing an original Diwali song with their mouths opening and closing to the words. You can watch the whole thing free, with your photo in it, before you decide to keep it.
Picture your dad on a dancer, singing a Diwali song he has never heard, with the confidence of a man who has never once checked the lyrics. Then picture the family group chat when it arrives. That's the card.
Start by digging up a photo where everyone's eyes are open.
Picking the three
Three faces fit. Mom, Dad and you. You and your two siblings, agreeing on something for once. Your grandparents and the grandchild who set up their phone. Upload a group photo, Tangy Limes finds the faces, and you tap to choose who goes on which dancer.
If nobody has a recent photo together, upload a few separate ones and take one face from each. Grandma's face from the wedding album and your brother's from his graduation can dance side by side, which is more coordination than either of them showed at the wedding.
The faces are cutouts of your actual photos. Nothing gets redrawn or smoothed, so your uncle still looks like your uncle, mustache and all.
Changing the words
The headline says HAPPY DIWALI, and you can rewrite it to whatever your family actually says. A few ideas:
- SHUBH DEEPAVALI
- HAPPY DIWALI FROM ALL OF US
- SAVE ME SOME KAJU KATLI
- SORRY WE MISSED THE PUJA
- NEXT YEAR, IN PERSON
Add the names too. They show up in the intro, so the aunties in the group chat know who sent it without having to ask, and without replying "who is this?" to their own nephew.
Sending it on WhatsApp
Make a share link and paste it into the family group. Tapping it opens a web page that plays the video, with nothing to install and no account. You can also download the MP4 and send it as a regular video, or email the card from its page to up to five people for the relatives who don't do WhatsApp. The card is 16:9, which looks right on a laptop or the living room TV, and there's a 9:16 version that fills a phone screen if you'd rather post it as a Status.
What it costs
Previewing is free, as many times as you like. Keeping the card is a one-time $1.99, with no subscription and nothing to cancel in December.
There's one Diwali card for now. If you'd like a different one, say a card for two, request it at tangylimes.com/#request. Then send yours on Diwali morning, before your mother forwards a glittery diya picture to everyone on your behalf.