How to Stop Amazon From Ruining Christmas


It has probably happened to all of us at some point. You got online on Black Friday or Cyber Monday and ordered a TON of stuff from Amazon. Now anytime you turn on your computer and visit a website, the ads being shown, and your recent history on Amazon are exactly the things you purchased for your kids for Christmas! Amazon is about to give away all of your secrets! You can turn off Amazon browsing history easily to make sure your kids don’t see everything you’ve been searching for!

Turn off Amazon browsing history

There is a way to hide this information though! When you are browsing on Amazon’s website there is a menu option called “Browsing History”. Move your mouse over it, and then click “view and edit” from the drop-down.

From the edit screen click on “Manage History” and then click the button to remove all items and then toggle the switch to off for the browsing history. Once the holiday season is over, and you are done buying Christmas presents, you can turn it back on… or not.

Set up kids accounts

Amazon actually offers a “Household” setting where you can manage accounts for your whole family. This way they aren’t actually logged into YOUR Amazon account, and can’t see what you have already purchased.

To get family members their own account, you can click on Your Account and scroll down to the middle section called “Shopping programs” and click on Amazon Household. On a mobile device, it’s just listed as “Manage your Household”

From here you can create accounts for your children and share different content with them. Then go sign into their device as them instead of as you. Hopefully, that will keep some nosey Nellie’s out of your business!

Alexa should keep her big mouth shut!

Another friend of mine had a different experience with Amazon ruining Christmas. The family has Alexa devices, and Alexa had a notification that packages had been delivered. Their enterprising daughter casually asked Alexa what had been delivered, and she pretty much gave up details of the entire order from Black Friday… including ALL of her Christmas presents.

You can turn these notifications off within the Alexa app on your phone. Open the app and then tap on the 3 bars in the top left corner. Select “Settings” from the drop down. Swipe down until you see Notifications, and then select Shopping Notifications.

I would toggle them all off during the holiday season. Once your child figures out how to say “Where’s My Stuff?” they could find out your entire order!

So, this year, don’t let Amazon ruin Christmas, and take back control!! Now, if only packages could be hidden automatically too…..

 


This post may contain affiliate links, which means I receive compensation if you make a purchase using the links.

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About the author

Sarah Werle Kimmel

Sarah Werle Kimmel is a digital parenting coach and family tech expert. She has spent the last 20 years of her career working as a Microsoft Certified IT Manager supporting over 100 small businesses. During that time she started Family Tech LLC to help families understand and manage the technology in their home. She has regularly appeared as a family tech expert on local NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX news affiliates, BYUtv and Studio 5, and has been invited all over the world from tech companies like Lenovo, Verizon, Microsoft, Dell, and Samsung. Find out more on her website SarahKimmel.com

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