Christmas in Animal Crossing New Horizons

 

During the month of December, Animal Crossing islands look more festive. Trees are strung with colorful lights, villagers decorate their homes with festive decorations, snow blankets the ground, and players are visited by a special someone on Christmas Day. The majority of holiday fun actually takes place on December 24th, or Christmas Eve, rather than Christmas Day. 

Jingle arrives on your island after 5AM your local time on December 24th and stays until 5AM December 25th. He'll set about giving you two tasks to complete and will reward you for doing each one:

Step 1: Craft Festive Wrapping Paper 

Talk to Jingle and he'll tell you that he forgot to wrap your villagers' presents and will give you a recipe for DIY Festive Wrapping Paper before asking you to craft three of them. To craft all three items you will need a total of 3 Blue Ornaments, 3 Yellow Ornaments, and 3 Red Ornaments.

• How to get Ornaments for DIY Recipes: From Mid-December through early January, if you shake one of the festive Christmas trees on your island, it might just drop an ornament. You'll be able to use these ornaments to craft Toy Day decorations. It's hard to get these things to drop, so you might have to shake your trees several times before one falls to the ground. 
• Reward: Once you have the three Festive Wrapping Paper pieces in hand, return them to Jingle and give them to him. As a reward, he'll give you a set of Toy Day stockings. Make sure to hang these in your house right away (more on that to come).

Step 2: Deliver toys to your villagers 

Now Jingle will give you the Magic Bag, a.k.a. Santa's toy sack, and will ask you to deliver gifts to your villagers. You must deliver all of the gifts before 5AM your local time in the early morning hours of Dec 25th as both Jingle and the Magic Bag will disappear at that point. Run around and talk to your villagers. They can be anywhere on the island including in their homes, in shops, or walking around outside. 

• Dressing like Santa isn't necessary: You don't have to don the red hat the coat if you don't want to, your villagers will know that the gifts are from Santa when they see the Magic Bag. But dressing up can be part of the fun. 
• Your villagers aren't picky: Unlike previous Animal Crossing games, you don't need to choose which gift to give them, the Magic Bag makes it so you automatically pull the right gift for each of your neighbors. 
• Reward: Return to Jingle when you're done delivering the presents and he'll give you the Toy Day Sleigh and a Gift Pile DIY recipe. 

Exchange gifts with your villagers 

In addition to giving out presents from Santa Claus on Dec 24th, you can also exchange gifts with your villagers, if you'd like. To do this, simply purchase some wrapping paper from the green cabinet at Nook's Cranny or craft some and then wrap up just about anything that's currently in your inventory, even a rock will do. Once the presents are wrapped, give them to your villagers. 

You'll recall that fun toys have been available to purchase every day at Nook's Cranny. Now is the perfect time to wrap up any of those gifts you might have acquired before now and hand them out. Your villagers aren't picky, they'll like anything you give them.

What to do on Christmas Day — December 25th

Remember how I mentioned before that you need to hang up the Toy Day Stockings somewhere in your house on December 24th? That's because if you go and check those stockings on December 25th, you'll find that there's a special item waiting for you inside: Jingle's Framed Photo.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons continues to prove just why it is one of the best Nintendo Switch games ever made. New updates and experiences can be had depending on the time of the year to keep us entertained. I'm really looking forward to meeting Jingle and picking out the perfect presents for my favorite villager, Sprinkle. Until then, we'll just have to count down the days to Christmas.