A couple of my IoT students are planning on designing and building a flow to play mp3 files (located on a RPi) to an amplifiler connected to the Pi's 3.5mm audio socket. Project plan and progress diary
Although I have a working solution, this thread will be used to document THEIR progress.
Here's a very rough sketch of the ideas discussed during their first session.
Note:
There is nothing that ties this project to Christmas - they just wanted to try to out-do two other students, in the IoT Club, who are planning on controlling a Christmas tree from an ultrasonic distance sensor.