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How to Make the Most out of Animal Crossing New HorizonsWinter!

Whether or not you are new to Animal Crossing New Horizons, I bet you want to know all there is to winter. Well, you are in luck because this post will let you know how to get the most out of winter in this Nintendo life simulation game like making the perfect snowboy, how to catch a snowflake and what critters to look out for. Continue reading to learn all the Animal Crossing  New Horizons winter tips.

Psst… if you are an Animal Crossing fan be sure to check out Gift Ideas for Animal Crossing Fans!

How to Make a Perfect Snowboy in Animal Crossing During the Winter

Have you ever came across 2 snowballs on your island? These snowballs are used to create snowboys. If you make them perfect, the snowboy will give you a DIY recipe and a large snowflake required to make it. Also, these perfect snowboys will eventually melt but talk to them every day to get more large snowflakes before they do. 

Now that you know why you want to make the perfect snowboys, let us go ahead and make them. Go to one snowball and start kicking it around until you can start rolling it, keeping it a little distance away from the other snowball. Once that ball is about the same height as the TOP of your character’s ear, stop. This snowball will be the body.

Go to the other snowball and do the same thing until its height the same as the BOTTOM of your ear. Then push this snowball onto the other one and you made the perfect snowball.

(Do not roll the body snowball onto the head snowball. Doing so will result in the Snowboy complaining about having the head-size body and body-size head. Trust me, I accidentally did it.)

If you are still struggling, you can try the path trick mentioned in Mayor Mori’s video.

Animal Crossing New Horizons Winter: Snowflakes

The snowflakes during the winter in Animal Crossing can actually be caught using a bug net. These snowflakes are just normal size meaning they are not large snowflakes. However, they are still used in the frozen DIYs that the snowboy gives you.

You can also sell the snowflakes too if you don’t need them and sometimes you can earn nook miles from catching snowflakes.  

Animal Crossing New Horizons Winter: Critters

Dung Beetles are easy to catch, if you can find them. The beetles can be found rolling the snowballs around. If you just watch and stare at them, the dung beetles will actually fly away. (I actually stared at them, trying to figure out what they were and how they reminded me of the Korok in Legend of Zelda Wind Waker for a split second.)

Just grab your net and slowly approach it and swipe your net to catch it. 

Animal Crossing New Horizons Winter: New Creatures

A new Season means new critters in Animal Crossing New Horizons. Winter season starts in December for the northern hemisphere and June for the Southern Hemisphere. These are the fish that appear in the first month of Winter: 

• Pond Smelt (River, All Day)
• Stringfish (River Clifftop, 4 pm – 9 am)
• Sea Butterfly (Sea, All Day)
• Squid (Sea, All Day)
• Oarfish (Sea, All Day)

Listed below are the bugs that show up in the first month of Winter:

• Emperor Butterfly (5 pm – 8 am It is worth 4,00 bells!!)
• Rajah Brooke’s birdwing (Flying Bug 8 am – 5 pm)
• Dung Beetle ( On ground rolling snowballs All day)

The bug that shows up in the last month of winter is the Tiger beetle that is on the ground all day. 

The only new sea creature that comes in during the first month of winter is the lobster and he is available all day. 

Animal Crossing New Horizons Winter: Leaving Critters

Since the weather and temperature change with new season, that means that there will be critters that leave after the first month of winter which are:

• Pike (Fish, River All Day)
• Spiny Lobster (Sea Creature, 9 am – 4 pm)
• Mussel (Sea Creature, All Day)
• Turban Shell ( Sea Creature, All Day)

The two creatures that are leaving in the second month are winter are:

• Lobster (even though he just got here, Sea Creature All Day)
• Abalone (Sea Creature 4 pm – 9 am)

The third month of winter has more critters leaving which are: 

• Pond Smelt (Fish, River, All day)
• Blowfish (Fish Sea 9pm – 4am)
• Damselfly (Flying Bug, All Day)
• Dung Beetle (Bug, Rolling Snowballs, All Day)
• Rajah Brooke’s birdwing (Flying Bug 8 am – 5 pm)
• Oyster (Sea Creature, All Day)
• Venus’ Flower Basket (Sea Creature, All Day)
• Sea Pig (Sea Creature 4 pm – 9 am)
• Sweet Shrimp (Sea Creature 4 pm – to 9 am)

Make sure to grab them before they disappear. If you want more information about critters, you can check out the wiki. That is where I got this list from. 

Animal Crossing New Horizons Winter: Events

The events are actually different in the northern hemisphere than in the southern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere, they celebrate Halloween in spring and Christmas in Summer. It is crazy for us northerners to fathom. Therefore, I will list the hemispheres separately.

Animal Crossing Winter Events: Northern Hemisphere

These are the events in for the Northern Hemisphere in the winter:

• Winter Solstice Shopping Event (Dec 1 – Dec 31)
• Festive season (Dec. 15 – Jan. 6)
• Toy Day (Dec. 24)
• New Year’s Eve and Various Shopping Events (Dec. 26 – Dec. 31)
• New Year’s Eve (Dec. 31)
• New Year (Jan. 1)
• New Year Shopping event (Jan. 1 – Jan 15)
•  Fishing Tourney (Second Saturday in Jan.)
• Lunar New Year (Varies)
• Valentine’s Day Shopping Event (Feb. 1 – Feb. 14)
• Festivale (Feb. 15)

Animal Crossing Winter Events: Southern Hemisphere

The events for the Southern Hemisphere winter are:

• Wedding Season ( June 1 – June 30)
• Father’s Day Shopping Event (June 1- June 30)
• International Children’s day shopping event (June 1 – June 30)
• Winter solstice shopping event (June 6th – July 6th)
• Tanabata Shopping Event (July 1 – July 31)
• Cowboy festival shopping event (August 1 – August 31)
• Cowherd and Weaver Girl Day Shopping event (August 1 – August 31)
• Fishing Tourney (Second Saturday in July)
• Fireworks show (Every Sunday in August)

Seasonal DIYs

During certain seasonal events, there are special DIYs that can be obtained by flying balloons only. Be on the lookout for these balloons if you want to collect all of the seasonal DIYs because they are only around for a limited of time. 

Many players use a wall or organ trick where they will make a perimeter around either the eastern or western beach using climbing walls or organs so that they can catch any flying balloons. Which beach to use is determined by the wind direction. I will warn you that this is very time consuming and not all flying balloons will be carrying DIYs.

Also, the ingredients required to make these DIYs are around for a limited time as well. During the festive season, you need to shake the trees with Christmas lights in order to get ornaments, for example. Make sure you get as many of the limited time ingredients. 

Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis

The Aurora Borealis can only be viewed by the northern hemisphere players in the wintertime. Aurora Australis is just like the Aurora Borealis but it is for the southern hemisphere players during the winter. Viewing the Auroras doesn’t gain you anything but the visuals are nice and allow great photo opportunities.

Animal Crossing New Horizons Winter Conclusion

That is a lot of stuff you can do during the winter in Animal Crossing New Horizons. I hope this helped you as much as it helped me. Trust me, I like being able to see all winter critters in one easy place instead of page hopping on the wiki.

Pin me!!!!

 Just for a recap, the items mentioned were:

• Making a perfect snowboy
• Catching snowflakes
• Winter Events
• Seasonal DIYs
• Winter Critters
• Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis

Also, if you are an Animal Crossing fan, check out the Gifts for Animal Crossing Fans!

If this was useful, please share this post, How to Make the Most Out of Animal Crossing New Horizons Winter. I will see you next time.

Amber Borden

Amber is an avid gamer. The first game she ever played was Super Mario Bros on the NES. She has seen many genres of videos games due to her 30 years of gaming. However, Amber typically sticks to RPGs, Sandbox and Simulation.
Since she loves gaming, her first job was at a Gamestop. Also, she has written guides for Gamefaqs. Amber was a full time worker in the retail world, but now she is working on this site from home. No matter what, however, she still plays her video games.

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