Thursday, December 24, 2020: Christmas Eve

Today is Christmas Eve, or in the world of Animal Crossing, Toy Day! I decided to log in during the day just to see what was going on. Isabelle had on a Santa hat! Just like the Halloween event, the NPCs are all dressed up and looking festive.

It wasn't just Isabelle; in the plaza, all my villagers were dressed up! Sherb was singing by the Christmas tree. Toy Day is here!

To my surprise, I ran right into Jingle, the black-nosed reindeer! I'm so used to the past Animal Crossing games where Jingle would only show up at night. But I was able to speak with him and do the event this afternoon, which may have been for the best since we're watching Elf tonight. :) Hearing the new Animal Crossing Christmas music with the euphonium and glockenspiel and sleigh bells... And it's always fun to see a classic Animal Crossing character in HD! Aah, it's so great!

The first thing I had to do was make some festive wrapping paper for Jingle by shaking down some ornaments.

Along with gathering ornaments, I also checked out the shops. I realize now I was silly and forgot to grab Santa's beard, so I did that now - luckily, the Able Sisters were selling it. I know I said I had been prepared, but now I'm getting deja vu from New Leaf...

Now that I had the complete outfit and the three rolls of festive wrapping paper, I went back to Jingle to see what the next step was. He first gave me some stockings (and mentioned something about setting those out for some reward tomorrow...?), and like in New Leaf, gave me a bag with presents for my villagers!

So, I went around handing things out. The one difference between New Horizons and New Leaf is they got rid of the December clues, so you just give them wrapped gifts. A little disappointing, but it was still nice to give the gifts out. I was also a bit bummed that I had put in all this work to pick out presents for them, only to deliver Jingle's - or Santa's!

I discovered you could look inside the bag in your inventory to work out who you still need to send presents too. That was a nice way to check, rather than running around speaking with people I've already done. But I headed back to Jingle when I was finished, and got a couple sweet rewards!

Again, a bit saddened it seems they don't have the Jingle series in this game! I really hope they'll start adding back in missing furniture themes/series into the game in its second year. That'll certainly keep me playing! However, what I did get is pretty neat, especially the sleigh.

However... I wasn't done quite yet! As one of my villagers suggested when I was done with Jingle, I could go around again and give my villagers the handpicked gifts! Thank goodness! They gave me presents in return, too. I had to wrap them first before I could hand them out. It seems the rewards are mostly toys from the shop you could buy all December - but I got things in different colors.

I liked giving Sylvana the red leaves I was talking about yesterday.

I got Diana the incense candles she had mentioned.

And Merengue was discussing her diary - I suppose this blog is my way to capture all my Animal Crossing memories, too! Sydney said something similar, when I played a couple hours later.

Phil liked my festive gift I got him (I suppose in the spirit of Toy Day!), so I might have gotten something nicer from him! I was waiting to open the gifts later on.

It was also fun to duck into Resident Services to see Tom Nook and Isabelle on my way to pay off some debt at the bank.

Later in the evening, I played again, but there was nothing particularly different going on. However, I did check out some of my gifts, and craft an illuminated present the sky sent me for Christmas! (Balloon present.)

I also got the idea to find a Christmas-themed island to go and visit, and found Ellie's town of Artemis. The description was that it was something like Hogsmeade; it was absolutely incredible! There was so much stuff everywhere, the game had trouble loading everything in! I really liked this scene with the festive trees and model homes. I guess there are festive trees in this game! I had no idea - hopefully I can come across one for next year!

Her house was really neat, using the festive presents and customizing the screens.

And this shot of a little village was absolutely breath-taking!

Here is the Dream Address if you are interested, even though I realize Christmas is tomorrow!

And finally, it didn't feel right to leave this game behind for the night (hopefully playing 51 Clubhouse Games tomorrow...!) without speaking with Jingle against the backdrop of Christmas Eve night, just like the past Animal Crossing games. While I was slightly disappointed with the event overall, it was still honestly a wonderful time, and I love celebrating the festive season in every Animal Crossing! Have a wonderful rest of your night everyone! Happy holidays!