Amelie's Cafe: Holiday Spirit is a Christmas-themed time management game developed by the company, Alawar Entertainment. The main character is a girl named Amelie, who owns a number of cafes and personally runs them. The player takes on the role of Amelie, and makes sure that she attends to all of her customers on time. Satisfied customers result in profit, while disgruntled ones result in loss of money. The game features a Story mode, in which the player must play a series of levels in chronological order. The levels increase in difficulty as the game progresses, and the player must fulfill a certain goal in order to complete each level. In the Survival mode, the player has the opportunity to earn more points without a set goal or time limit.
In order to fulfill the customers’ orders, the player must forward them to the chefs in the restaurant, so that they can start working on the dishes. Occasionally, customers will give more orders even after they’ve finished their meals, so Amelie must be alert enough to attend to those orders as well. The more satisfied the customers are, the more money Amelie earns. Additional points can be obtained by completing a certain action more than three times. Initially, these bonuses are optional but they become necessary to complete a level later in the game.