To wrap up the holiday season of 2023 and welcome the new year with a fresh start, I wanted to talk about the two major holiday celebrations in Animal Crossing: New Horizons!
I’ve been a casual player of New Horizons for two years now-though I hadn’t been on for months so my villagers were very surprised to see me. I wanted to explore what’s called “Toy Day.”
Toy Day
On December 24th, the villagers in town celebrates the occasion by wearing Santa hats, and you’re told by Isabelle that there’s a visitor named Jingle. He’s going to give out gifts to everyone on behalf of Santa, but he doesn’t have enough wrapping paper, so you must get some for him in order to save Toy Day. After you help him, he’ll give you a magic bag that he also possesses, and you can spread holiday cheer by talking with your villagers and giving them gifts.
On my personal island, I made a point to visit Sherb first, as he is my favorite of the group that I have, followed by Stitches, and the rest. However, it’s bittersweet as this is the island I’ve had since my start of playing this game, and I’ve been heavily considering restarting a new island to freshen up the game play for me. I want mostly new villagers than what I have-minus Sherb, he’s a required one-and just get back into the game.
If you give gifts to half the villagers, Jingle gives you a recipe to make gift piles, which makes the island more cheery with Toy Day joy. If you give gifts to everyone, you get a sleigh that you can sit on. Finally, you do a gift exchange with your villagers where you give and receive gifts from your villagers, which is always a fun time to see what your villagers would give you.
Jingle will leave until the next Toy Day, but he leaves you something as well. On December 25th, Isabelle will announce that the holiday tree will come down soon so to enjoy it while it lasts. After this, you can open the stocking that Jingle gave you and it contains a photo of Jingle that you can only receive on Toy Day. The villagers will also have more to say about their Toy Day experience.
New Years Eve
Then there’s the New Years Event. Isabelle will announce that it’s the final day of the year, and at the front of the plaza, there’s a big celebration with balloons and a countdown board to the new year. Isabelle and Tom Nook are standing next to the countdown as well, and Isabelle will give you a light stick to celebrate the new year with. Tom Nook will also give you party poppers and sell some at a discounted price.
You can also talk with your villagers and their excitement for the new year. They all even have cute, formal outfits on, including Isabelle and Tom Nook. Otherwise, there isn’t much to say about this day until it’s minutes to New Years Day. Everyone on the island will come to the plaza right before the countdown ends and stand there with their light sticks. Once the countdown ends, they all wave their light sticks and you get a brief firework show to ring in the new year. This event isn’t as busy as Toy Day, but it’s still a charming event to play in the game and celebrate the new year. It’ll even have fireworks go off that display the new year, 2024, which is a nice touch.
The next day, Isabelle will be excited about the new year and the plaza is back to normal, starting yet another exciting year on Animal Crossing.
It was fun getting to play these events again as I hadn’t since 2021, and now I decided what better way to start the new year than to refresh my island and game play. I’ll miss all my villagers, but I haven’t played much because I feel like I don’t have much to do. It’ll be sad when I finally wipe my island, but I’m ready for something new as well. It’s time to go back to the beginning and experience a new island.
