Google+ announced a few new features to their Hangouts today in hopes to bring friends and family closer during the holidays. They make saying hello to your loved ones face-to-face easy and best of all – free.

One new improvement is the ability to start a Google+ Hangout video chat from a status update.

As they show in the photo above, all you have to do is click “Hangout” underneath a status update and they’ll add your invitation in the comments.

Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President of Google+, gives an example of when this feature might be useful. He says,”Suppose your sister gets engaged, or your roommate lands a job, or your favorite singer shares their concert schedule. You can obviously write comments back and forth, but it’s moments like these when you really want to connect in person.”

Google+ has also brought Hangouts to Google+ Messenger on mobile devices. Just tap the new hangout icon (a video camera) and it will go instantly from text to video.

You can expect to see this new app within the coming days.

You can see all of the other improvements Google+ made to Hangouts on their post here, which includes integration with YouTube and more.

Can you see yourself using Google+ Hangouts more with these new improvements?