Christmas is over, the last of the turkey’s been polished off, and all we at The Practice are left with now are groaningly full stomachs, a mountain of discarded gift-wrap, and of course some fond memories! Perhaps you were even lucky enough to be on the receiving end of an iPad Mini or two, in which case you’ve surely been bestowed the best antidote to those post-holiday blues.

If not, hopefully our top tech roundup of 2012 will lift your spirits, or just inspire further jealousy and bitterness…Nevertheless, read on to see which innovative technological devices, startups and sites we’ve loved this year.

Bidding farewell to 2011 and ringing in the New Year was a curiosity-inspired idea entitled Timehop. Timehop was created to offer daily email blasts to any Foursquare, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter users with their posts from exactly one year ago. The aim of the startup, (founded at a Foursquare hackathon by Benny Wong and Jonathan Wegener), was to prompt nostalgia in its recipients upon receiving reminders about what they were up to at the same time the previous year. We think any app or online features that appeal to our emotional responses are worth exploring further- Timehop proved so popular that it garnered several thousand users within a short time, and even inspired Facebook to launch a similar service in August 2012.

Much as we dislike admitting it (being loyal iPhone users and all), the Samsung Galaxy Note II does deserve a mention. With over 5 million sales generated in 2 months of its launch, it’s hard not to be impressed by the sheer popularity and success of this smartphone. Its 5.6-inch screen makes it the largest to date, and understandably perfect for those who spend hours peering into their phones. Secondly, who doesn’t love a good old stylus to draw or screen grab with? And much to Apple’s legal woes, it even incorporates some of the iPhone’s best-loved features including the Siri-esque ‘S Voice’, which the only criticism we can muster is its highly unoriginal naming.

One of the most addictive social media sites to emerge this year has got to be Pinterest competitor, The Fancy. Like its rival, The Fancy’s users can save images of products, inspirational pictures and destinations to their profiles. Unlike Pinterest, there’s also the added e-commerce element too where you can buy any ‘fancied’ items or be encouraged to book a hotel or trip to a ‘fancied’ holiday destination. Later features include a $30 per month subscription fee where subscribers are granted a monthly goodie box of ‘fancied’ items in categories of their choice worth at least $60 dollars. The site also partnered up with American Express to entice any cardholders spending $100 or more on the social site with $20 back on their credit card statements. Combining social with consumerism? It was clearly the big thing of 2012, and so The Fancy definitely makes it to our top picks.

You might not have stumbled upon this online tool yet, but this has definitely helped out many of us at The Practice, particularly with apartment moves to the Big Apple! Planyourroom.com is a site that literally lets you do what its title indicates. But it’s highly effective nonetheless, allowing users to input measurements, trial room plans and arrange furniture to gauge real layouts. You can then save, print and email your plans for future reference, because as we all know, there’s nothing more irksome than guesswork when it comes to buying furniture that actually fit the dimensions of your home.

And finally, this year we discovered wireless music streaming at long last. Our tech product of choice? The Sonos Connect Sound System. The design is sleek, you can attach it to all your audio systems and stream music from hundreds of different online radio stations as well as your iTunes, all with the touch of your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. Seamlessly created for multi-room functionality, this is the sound system we’d been waiting for.

Do you like our choices? We’re also keen to mention Pinterest and Instagram for marking the 2012 social media boom (although both were founded prior to this year). We’d love to hear your picks too, including any iPad Mini reviews! Please tweet to us @PracticeDigital and comment via our Facebook page.