Animal Crossing - Festive season: How to find red, blue and gold ornaments, including the festive DIY recipes in New Horizons

Festive season dates in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Unlike the snowflake season and the appearance of Snowboys in New Horizons, festive seasons at the same time no matter which hemisphere your island is located in.

Festive season in New Horizons runs from 15th December to the 6th January.

Throughout festive season you can collect a number of festive DIY recipes, which can then be crafted using ornaments.

How to find red, blue and gold ornaments in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

There are three different kinds of ornaments for you to collect in New Horizons - red ornaments, blue ornaments and gold ornaments.

All of these ornaments can be found by shaking cedar trees that have been decorated with lights. Not every cedar tree will have lights on it, so make sure that you pick the right one before you start shaking.

Like with acorns and pinecones, you're not guaranteed an ornament on your first shake, but, if you keep on shaking that tree, you'll earn an ornament eventually. Just remember to check for wasps first or you might have a nasty surprise waiting for you.

It's also important to note that gold ornaments appear to be rarer than blue and red, so these might longer for you to find.

Ornament prices in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

If you end up having a surplus of ornaments in New Horizons, then you can sell them at Nook's Cranny.

Each ornament, no matter the colour, is worth 50 Bells, so it is possible to make a small profit.

Animal Crossing festive DIY recipe list: How many are there?

There are 12 festive DIY recipes for you to collect in New Horizons and each one allows you to bring a bit of holiday flair to your island.

Here are the 12 entries in the festive set in New Horizons:

• Big Festive Tree
• Festive Top Set
• Festive Tree
• Holiday Candle
• Illuminated Present
• Illuminated Reindeer
• Illuminated Snowflakes
• Illuminated Tree
• Jingle Wall
• Ornament Mobile
• Ornament Wreath
• Tabletop Festive Tree

How to find festive DIY recipes in Animal Crossing: New Horizons explained

Isabelle will help you start your festive DIY recipe in New Horizons by giving you the Ornament Wreath recipe during the first morning announcement you watch during festive season.

This recipe will be available to every player resident who's unlocked the DIY recipe app, so, if you don't receive the announcement and share your island with another player, check your DIY recipe collection, because you might already have it!

After this give-away, however, you'll have to collect the rest of the festive DIY recipes on your own.

To do this you need to pop the balloon floating across your island and open the presents each one transports contains a festive DIY recipe. This is the same method you'll use to collect the other seasonal DIY recipes, such as the snowflake, maple leaf or cherry blossom petal DIY recipes.

Luckily, these special DIY recipes can be found in presents dropped by any balloon colour, which means that you don't have to wait for a specific colour to arrive. Instead, you can enjoy popping every balloon you see.

It may take some time, but, eventually, you'll complete the festive DIY recipe set.

The Animal Crossing 2.0 update and Happy Home Paradise is here! We can help you with the new additions - including where to find Brewster, Gyroids, new villagers, ordinances, new fences, storage shed, new hairstyles, Froggy Chair, group stretching and Kapp'n boat tours. Cooking is now unlockable, so you need to know how to make both flour and sugar, as well as how to grow carrots, potatoes and tomatoes. Meanwhile, if you're new to Animal Crossing, our New Horizons tips can help with the basics. From the off, there's fish and bugs to catch, flowers and fruit to grow with. One long term goal is building your Happy Home Academy score. Finally, you need tools such as the new ladder and vaulting pole to fully explore.

Tips for finding festive DIY recipes in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Hunting down balloons in New Horizons is quite a time consuming task, so, to help you collect every festive DIY recipe, we've put together this list of tips:

• The direction balloons float in depends on the time of day. If you're playing during the day, then you can expect to see the balloons flying from the west to east side of your island. When night truly falls between 6pm to 7pm, however, this direction will switch and the balloons will begin to appear in the east, leaving in the west.
• Balloons will only spawn during minutes ending with a '4' or a '9.' Examples of balloon spawning time are 4:44pm and 10:29am. It's important to remember, however, that there's no guarantee that a balloon will spawn during these times, so don't be surprised if you have to wait another five minutes.
• Try to avoid entering buildings. The balloons will respawn if you enter any of the buildings or tents on your island. This means that if there's a balloon flying over your island, but you quickly pop into the Museum, that balloon will have vanished when you leave the building. For this reason, it's a good idea to avoid any unnecessary trips inside when balloon hunting.
• Be careful where you pop the balloons! Shooting down a balloon as it flies over water, the large grey rocks that line your island's shore or even a patch of flowers is risky, because it might cause the destruction of your present.

• Have the camera in rolling mode. By putting the game's camera in rolling mode, you'll be given a far greater view of the sky, allowing you to spot any incoming balloons.
• Listening to the wind will help you spot balloons. A low whistling sound can be heard when a balloon is flying near you, so keep your ears open for this sound.
• Always bring multiple slingshots! You're going to be popping a lot of balloons in your hunt for the festive DIY recipes, so make sure you bring an extra slingshot for when yours breaks or bring the materials, along with the DIY workbench, to create another when the time comes.

Good luck finding every festive DIY recipe in New Horizons and don't forget to hunt down some snowflakes or build a Snowboy!