Dina Bader: What happens for the Animal Crossing New Year's event?

Ring in the new year with Isabelle, Tom Nook, and your villagers.

It's hard to believe that another year is drawing to a close. What better way to ring in the new year than by celebrating with one of the best Nintendo Switch games? Within Animal Crossing, you'll experience a countdown followed by a fireworks display and will have the option to purchase festive items to celebrate with your villagers. Here's everything you need to know about celebrating the Animal Crossing New Year.

When does the Animal Crossing New Year's event start?

On December 31st at 5AM your local time, Tom Nook and Isabelle can be found wandering around the Resident Services plaza preparing for the nights festivities. However, the big celebration won't start until 11PM. Since these two are busy with preparations, Resident Services will be closed for the day.

What to do for Animal Crossing New Year's event

Start the event off right by talking to Tom Nook and Isabelle. Nook will give you 5 poppers to celebrate with while Isabelle will give you a Light Stick to wave around. It's a good idea to dress up in fun festive clothes to celebrate the coming year. You'll have plenty of time to do this as the fireworks don't begin until midnight.

Animal Crossing New Year's items

Tom Nook runs a stand during the festivities where players can purchase special hats for 500 Bells or 5-packs of poppers for 300 Bells. The thing is, the hats come in two different styles — a pointed party hat or a colorful top hat — and come in four different colors each. However, Nook will only sell one hat type. You'll either need to trade with friends or wait for the next New Year's event to obtain the rest of the hat variations.

If you use the Nook Shopping app, select the Special Goods option, and then go to the Seasonal section, you'll find several New Year's items for purchase from Dec 26th - Dec 31st.

Animal Crossing New Year's Eve items

Image	Name	Cost
	Sparkling cider	1,000 Bells
	Twleve-grape dish	1,200 Bells
	Berliner	1,200 Bells
	New Year's noodles	1,300 Bells

As with all Nook Shopping items, these things take a day to arrive so you'll need to purchase them before the 31st if you want to use them to celebrate the new year in-game.

Animal Crossing New Year's items

These items can be purchased from the Nook Shopping app from Jan 1st - Jan 15th. For an explaination for why these things are available in the new year, read below the chart.

Image	Name	Cost
	2021 Celebratory Arch	2,021 Bells
	Kadomatsu	2,580 Bells
	Kagamimochi	1,800 Bells
	New Year's Shimekazari	2,000 Bells
	Olivier Salad	1,000 Bells
	Yut Nori	1,300 Bells
	Zodiac Ox Figurine	1,600 Bells

The 2021 Celebratory Arch is pretty self explainatory, though, we see what you did there with the price, Nintendo.
Kadomatsu is a traditional Japanese New Year decoration placed in front of homes to welcome ancestral spirits.
Kagami mochi are another traditional Japanese New Year decoration made up to two mochi placed on top of each other with a leaf on top.
New Year's Shimekazari are Japanese New Year decorations that prevent bad spirits from entering your homes while inviting good gods to enter.
Olivier Salad is a popular European dish usually made with potatoes, carrots, green peas, cucumber, eggs, celeric, onions, chicken, and apples. It's traditionally served as one of the main dishes during New Year's Eve.
2021 is the year of the ox for the Chinese Zodiac, which is why one of the items you can purchase is the Zodiac Ox Figurine.
Yut Nori is a traditional board game from Korea that is popular to play during the Lunar New Year celebrations.

Animal Crossing New Year's countdown & fireworks

A large countdown timer appears in front of Resident Services at the start of the day. When only one minute remains to midnight, all of your island's villagers will gather around to watch the remaining amount of time tick by. When only 10 seconds remain, they'll begin waving their Light Sticks about. Now's the time to pull out your own Light Stick or prepare to use your poppers.

Vibrant fireworks light up your island's sky from 12AM to 2AM. This is the perfect time to take fun pictures with your favorite villagers. By the way, if you talk to them while they're celebrating in the plaza, your villagers just might tell you their hopes, dreams, and resolutions for the new year.

Animal Crossing New Year

It's time to countdown the remaining hours of the year with your favorite villagers. Enjoy the fireworks and have fun waving around your light sticks!