The Yuletide Festival Guide

As the end of the year approaches and the weather turns cold, snowy players throughout Middle-earth gather for fun! Our annual Yuletide Festival features games, rewards, and other great ways to celebrate Winter!

The 2023 Yuletide Festival begins at 10:00 AM Eastern (-5 GMT) on December 7th and runs until 3:00 AM Eastern (-5 GMT) on January 3rd, 2023!

How to get there:

When the Yuletide Festival is active, players will receive a quest upon login called “Yule Festival is Here!” that grants a map to the town of Winter-home, located in Frostbluff, where many of the festival's activities take place. Winter-home is not accessible directly by traveling through the main game world, but is instead accessed through stable-masters or maps. Players can get to Frostbluff by traveling there from a special stable master that appears near regular Stable-masters in West Bree. Michel Delving, Frerin's Court, and Celondim in addition to any maps to Winter-home they have acquired.

Once you get to Winter-home speak to Mara Sandydowns to pick up “A Fortune of Festive Spirit”, which then gives you your first wrapper quest “A Festive Flurry (Intro)”. Speak to Mara again and acquire “In the Spirit of Yule” and complete Yuletide Festival quests to finish it! NOTE: There are twenty days worth of Festive Flurry and Spirit of Yule participation quests, so plan accordingly!

Here are the locations for various Yuletide Festival quests and activities:

  • Winter-home - This quaint and picturesque village is tucked away in the small valley of Frostbluff, and is the main location for Yuletide activities.
  • Breeland Festival Grounds – Located at 24.7S, 51.6W, this festival area features quests along with Horse Racing.
  • Duillond – Several quests are available near the dancing stage in Duillond just south of the stable-master.
  • The Party Tree - Located in The Shire at 29.9S, 71.5W just north of Hobbiton. Several quests are available here!
  • Thorin's Hall Inn – Located near Frerin's Court, accessible from outside just to the left of the main entrance to Thorin's Hall. You'll transport to The Festival Arena. If you turn around and go back through the door, you'll enter Thorin's Hall Inn. You can also reach the Inn through Thorin's Hall.
  • The Shire Race-track – Location in the Delving Fields in The Shire at 35.3S, 73.2W.

The Yuletide Festival also features two Instances available through the Instance Finder:

  • Boss From The Vaults: Storvâgûn
  • The Battle at Frostbluff 

The Instance Finder can be located by pressing Shift+I inside of the game.

What to do:

Winter-home and other locations offer dozens of quests which have you help Middle-earth celebrate the season! This is a celebration of eating, drinking, and being merry – but it's also the time for mischief! You'll collect firewood, gather supplies, restock ale, build snow-creatures, take part in a theatre production and more! You can even challenge friends to a snowball fight!

Completing quests during Yuletide will award you Yule Festival Tokens and completing the Instances award Festivity Tokens, both of which can be spent for great rewards!

A note about the Frostbluff Theatre:

The GLOBE Theatre of Winter-home is a great way to either watch a showing of “Mad Baggins” or become an actor yourself! If you are an actor you will need to target the audience then perform the proper /emote when directed. If you are in the audience, you'll equip yourself with Flower Petals and Rotten Fruit from the Concessions Stand and either toss flowers if the actors /emote correctly, or fruit if they do not! Sticking around through the end of the performance is a must in order to get your Yule Festival Tokens.

A note about the Battle of the Snowballs:

This is a repeatable quest that runs for a few minutes and gives you the opportunity to pelt others in the field with snowballs! This event is only available when the NPC Cecil Voller is active outside of the snowball arena. When the quest ring is above Cecil's head, you can acquire the quest and then proceed into the arena until the fight is over.

  • Other questing locations:
  • Breeland Festival Grounds – Gather food and drink for the festival and take part in horse racing!
  • Duillond – Make merry by collecting Mistletoe and gather materials to make wreaths as gifts!
  • Thorin's Hall – Gather berries for a special dessert and pick up snow for Bree-land!
  • The Party Tree – Collect ribbons and bows for hobbits and bring good cheer and warm cider by collecting apples!
  • The Inn League and Ale Association are also looking for you! Find their nearest representative at various locations throughout the game to get started.

Missions and Instances:

Make sure to speak to Mara Sandydowns and acquire the quest “A Mission to Bring Good Cheer”, then run Missions throughout the game to complete the quest! There is also a Deed associated with this activity.

The instances Boss from the Vaults: Storvâgûn and Yule: The Battle at Frostbluff are only available during the Yuletide Festival! The Battle at Frostbluff can be played solo, duo, small group or six-person, and Boss from the Vaults: Storvâgûn is available as a 6-person instance.

Golden Festival Tokens:

Golden Festival Tokens are a unique barter currency associated with the Yuletide Festival that can be acquired with seventy five Yule Fest Token or by completing a Deed called “The More the Merrier!” These tokens can be traded with Dawson Berwick in exchange for special cosmetics!

Rewards:

The Yuletide Festival is one of our longest-running festivals and offering numerous rewards every year! Cosmetic items, housing decorations, steeds and war-steeds, pets, outfits, kites, emotes, and more are available, with new items debuting most years and older items returning as well!

New for 2023:

  • Cloak of Icy Expeditions
  • Hooded Cloak of Icy Expeditions
  • Boots of Icy Expeditions
  • Mittens of Icy Expeditions
  • Hat of Icy Expeditions
  • Coat of Icy Expeditions
  • Garments of Icy Expeditions - Gift-wrapped Selection Box
  • Icy Expeditions Steed
  • Icy Expeditions Caparison
  • Icy Expeditions Head-piece
  • Icy Expeditions Saddle
  • Icy Expeditions War-steed Cosmetics
  • Tome of the Icy Expeditions Sheep
  • Wintry Lantern Post
  • Wintry Yule Wall Banner

Yule Festivity Barter:

  • Wintry Outdoor Firepit

Additionally, during Yuletide, special Hobbit Gifts are available!

  • Celebratory Gondorian Tree Tapestry
  • Celebratory Umbari Coffee Table
  • Celebratory Umbari Bed
  • Midsummer Wreath - Selection Box
  • Tome of the Frost Aurochs
  • Silver Gift of Yules Past - Selection Box
  • Celebratory Wintry Sconce
  • Celebratory Large Decorative Vase
  • Banquet Decoration - Selection Box
  • Tome of the Wild Cinnamon Donkey
  • Tome of the Prepared Corgi
  • Gold or Silver Gift of Yules Past - Selection Box

The Storvâgûn instance also has updated item levels for its rewards.

All new rewards for the festival are available at Alex Grey under the "New Rewards" list. You do not have to complete the deed “The More the Merrier” in order to barter for new rewards. Older rewards are available from a variety of vendors, and the older steeds may require that you complete Yule Festival deeds in order to barter. You can find all these vendors near the Winter-home gate. Steed vendors are outside, with other vendors just inside.

Further Reading:

The community has also put together some excellent guides for the Yuletide Festival, including: