Hey there Holly Jolly Grinches!
The Season in the USA is getting a bit chilly, lights are strung up all over the place, Christmas Music on all sorts of stations, and we are all patiently awaiting with anticipation just WHAT might be in store for us for this year’s CHRISTMAS EVENT!
Figured I would bounce on by with a few thoughts of my own.
With this being the 4th incarnation of a Christmas Event, is there really a lot left for them to drop into our games? Well of course there is! We have YEARS of episodes and thoughts to choose from all over the span of the Simpsons World to choose from. These are some thoughts and ideas of the things I would like to see hit our games for a Christmas Event.
Maggie in her Star Snowsuit: I WANT MAGGIE! For frakk’s sake who at EA do I have to make nice with for this to happen? I mean COME ON!! I have begged for her since day one, and here we are years later. Can’t you find it in your heart to give Bunny a lil Christmas Gift of that adorable lil Baby with her Star Snowsuit Costume too? PWEEEAAAASE!!!
Santa Claus: Why on earth was this jolly fat man teased to us, just to be taken away? Can’t we get him back for keeps? I mean I do get that Kris Kringle is only supposed to hang around once a year, but I would really like to see him stick around this time in our games.
Chanakuh/Hannakah: However you want to spell it or celebrate it, I think with poor Krusty losing his father recently that now would be a good time to bring a bit MORE of the spirit of Chanakuh into our games. There are so many cool Buildings, Characters, and Decorations that span the Simpsons world that it could almost fill an entire Event.
Snowball Fights: I want an all out Snowball war in our Springfield’s this year with the Holiday. I would love it if we could do something cool like collect Snowballs and have a massive snowball fight to earn our Event Currency. Of course how this will be done is tricky as we have seen a bit of game struggling as of late with all the goodies in our games and that RAM being constantly pushed. But like with the Soccer Event, maybe we can go to a Neighbors and challenge them to a Snowball fight behind our Snow Forts. It may just work.
Gift Giving: Because I know EA likes to involve Neighbors in a lot of Events lately, why not have a bit more fun with it. Let us earn and drop off a “Present” to our Neighbors. Inside those gifts could be random Event Currency, Craft Currency, and a Rare 1-5 Donut Prize even? I think this would be great for all as it will really help Neighbors out with the usual “visits” we need each year to help us along during the Event, and will share in the “Holiday Spirit” of giving to others. Not to mention everyone loves unwrapping gifts, right?
Next up, some things that I have on the top of my mind from a few of the many Simpson Christmas Episodes.
More Character Skins: Last year we got the Nativity Scene from Simpsons Christmas Stories (S17, E9) with a temporary task with the Simpsons in the Manger Scene,
but I wonder if they would bring them back as individual active Skins complete with Tasks for this Season. They could even add in the other Characters from this scene King Herod Burns, Three Wise Men (Hibbert, Skinner, Frink), Smithers and even Blue Haired Lawyer are there,
Innkeeper Moe, Shepherds (Lenny & Carl),
Roman Soldier Quimby, and maybe some NPC Animals from the episode too like the Halo Duck.
Otto driving a Train: During the Episode The Fight Before Christmas (S22, E8), there were some cool things happening with the mini stories told during it. One of those items was Otto driving the North Pole Train a la Polar Express Style. I think it would be cool to get him involved in the Event this way. He could even hijack the Monorails in our town and use them as a “train”. Just sprinkle some lights and decorations on them, or a skin.
In this Episode, there was also a more festive looking Springfield sign, so why not a Festive skin for it too?
Even the Tire Fire got a whole new look, Tire Fire-place.
We also have a Krusty Claus in this one. We have Santa Homer, Santa Ned, so why not Santa Krusty? I just don’t know if I would want Martha Stewart in the game from this episode though. Lol.
Star Wars and more: Now the geek in me would REALLY love to have some Star Wars mixed into our silly lil games. Even if it is just something simple. Just last year we had the Episode I Won’t Be Home For Christmas (S26,E9) where Kumiko and CBG are watching the Star Wars Cosmic Special. (We could even get Kumiko back in the game for those that missed her to introduce them with CBG.)
There was also the Rich Texan being pulled by a Team of Bulls in his car like Santa in his Sleigh, another item that would be interesting in our games. We could also get Burns as the White Queen skin, he can use Martin’s “Elsa Castle” for tasks. Then there is Homer “Olaf”. Lol.
I also loved the “Gingerbread Look” to the houses in this episode opening credits as well as other recent holiday ones (also that everyone is Elves). I like the Christmas lights, but Gingerbread type Building Skins would be awesome. Speaking of Gingerbread, I loved the look of the Family as Gingerbread Cookies that Marge was making. Even Sideshow Gingerbread Bob. I think Gingerbread Skins for Characters would be funny, complete with them walking funny as they try to move their 2 dimensional bodies.
Halloween Christmas: Just to give Alissa an annoyed “I’m shaking my head at you” look towards me, why not have a Halloween Christmas? Just like in White Christmas Blues (S25,E8). I love Halloween and Alissa loves Christmas, so let’s mix up the two. Everyone wants a Santa dressed Skeleton, right? Or a Manger scene with a tarantula for the Baby? It’ll work, right? 😉
It worked for Jack, so why not? 😛
There are some cool things in this episode though like a Santa Hat on Jebediah’s Statue, the Sea Captains Ship House complete with Christmas Decorations,
A Huge Snowball with Wiggum and Lou stuck inside,
WWBJD (What Would Baby Jesus Do),
and Flanders Leftorium Express Kiosk.
On to a quick reminder peek at the lil “Hints” EA dropped into the game with Ned Flanders quick Questline.
Ned: Get decorating, boys! We’re gonna party like it’s 4 to 6 B.C. The Bible’s a little cloudy on the actual date.
Pop Up: Will Homer be able to cope with Ned’s amazing decorating skills? Come back next week to find out!
First up Ned is talking about 4-6 B.C., so this means it is supposed to be things happening just before the lil baby popped out in a Manger? What could that mean?
Homer and Ned in an all out Decorating War? Could this thing turn into a Griswold’s disaster? Or a town filled with Decorations on EVERYTHING?
Now to get y’all in the Christmas Spirit… a lil Simpson’s Song:
On the twelfth day of Christmas, My true love gave to me…
Twelve Grampas grumbling,
Eleven Barneys belching,
Ten Lennys leaping,
Nine Carls dancing,
Eight Moes a-milking,
Seven Selmas smoking,
Six Flanders praying,
FIVE GOLDEN FRINKS,
Four crawling nerds,
Three-eyed fish,
Two special Ralphs,
And a Maggie in a Snuggly.
That about does it for now. With 26 Seasons of possibilities, the options are endless of what goodies we could see this year. Did any of these items bring back some thoughts of wanted items for the game? Any other Episodes that are immediately brought to mind for you? Buildings, Characters, or Decorations you would like to see? Let us know.
~Bunny
I didn’t get a manger scene last year….was this years prior….and by the way I am almost to my 1 year anniversary with this game as I first DL’d the app right as last years xmas event started.
Thanks, now I have Celene Dion’s “Where are you Christmas” song stuck in my head from something as simple as just reading the heading of this blog lol. Definitely agree with everything on the list to Santa/EA though. Kinda hoping they re-release some things from previous years also, but don’t have high hopes about that after the Halloween CS Shop fiasco. Released some things but others are locked tightly in the EA vault. My Springfield cemetary area will go unfinished for another year, darn EA marketting team 😀
haha! You too, huh? Well, that’s in my head as is
Same (but fyi, it was Faith Hill – not Celine)
d’oh right, not sure why I went to Celine, for some reason I recall her doing at least a version of it.
We just watched The Grinch last night, so the connection was instant when I saw the post title! 🙂
*Faith Hill’s
Thanks Bunny for offering yourself for the good of the TSTO Community, I just hope EA are going to step up to the plate!
Maggie it’s time to come in from the cold.
Help! I can’t seem to view comments anymore?!
I am dyinggg for the Christmas update. My fiancee thinks I’m being so stupid cause I check every hour to see if I have a new update and I talk about it constantly! I haven’t been able to do the last two Christmas events really because I was always on vacation around this time of the year and missed out!
My story…. 🙂 this Will be my first Christmas””.. ( playing 3 years )
I don’t personally think Maggie should be an ‘event’ as such. Maybe release her with an event, but she needs to be permanent.
I’d love to see Maggie for Christmas too. Since Star Wars is huge this Christmas, I’d at least like a few references in the event dialogue. All very interesting ideas, Bunny. Surely EA will give us “Magaggie” this Christmas. Can’t think of a better time. I’d also like jobs for Snowball II and SLH. Some of the other animals in Springfield have permenant jobs now, but this beloved dog and cat are in the Simpson family, so that’d also make a nice Christmas gift from EA to us. I’d be tempted to buy SLH if he had jobs. Heck, he could chase the cat, or they could do some of those bits from the one episode where they were trying to get attention from Bart and Lisa because of some new pet or other. I forget the title at the moment. I’d also love Kumiko to make a comeback in the store. Been waiting to nab that character. Good stuff, and wishing the event would start already.
From the episode Bart Gets an Elephant. Season 5. I just watched it last night and thought the same thing
Such a cool post bunny 🐰🐰🐰🐰🐰
Think Christmas will come to our towns… Today???
>
The first thing I do every morning is check the App Store for a TSTO update. This morning, it said I had 4 updates pending, and I thought it was happening, but, alas, no update 😔
“Three-eyed fish” Hee hee, very clever. 🙂
All great ideas Bunny, but too late for this year, 🎄
Guess we’ll find out sometime tomorrow 🙂
I’m inclined to sing a song from the musical Annie 🙂
“Tomorrow, tomorrow, Xmas in TSTO tomorrow!”
“You’re only a tap away…..” 😀
Anyone know why they always start events a few days into the month and run them long? Like Halloween runs into November and This event will probably run into January…Why is this?
I often wonder the very same thing! It kind of takes the fun out of the event in a way. Atleast for me it does. While I was getting set (mentally) for Turkey day and the close arrival of Christmas, I was still tappin snakes n zombies!
I am looking forward to the Xmas event as much as the next person. However, remember how excited and then disapointed a lot of people in the Halloween event. Keep your expectations in check, as time goes on it is becoming difficult to find new ideas for these events.
I haven’t been able to log into the game in three or four hours, just stays on the “synchronizing” screen. Not sure what to do to fix this. Is it possible it’s attributed to Christmas updates?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we…?
I want Maggie! Though I think she probably deserves her own event like Sideshow Bob.
It’s nearly my one year anniversary, I started just before Christmas so I barely had any characters to complete the Christmas quests. Hardly knew what I was doing anyway, ha. So I didn’t earn many prizes last year. I hope there’s a good mix of old and new this year. We didn’t get a lot of new Halloween stuff… I’d like to get some good Christmassy skins for buildings and at least a couple of brand new characters (not NPC’s!) since we didn’t get any with the Halloween event.
Please hurry super excited this will be my 3rd x-mas and every year it keeps getting better and better!!! UPDATE!!!!
The Simpsons 12 days reminded me of this one (sung to the traditional 12 days)
12 possums playing
11 lizards leaping
10 wombats washing
9 crocs a-snoozing
8 dingos dancing
7 emus laying
6 sharks a-surfing
5 kangaroos
4 lyrebirds
3 wet galahs
2 snakes on skis
And a kookaburra in a gum tree
The Fat Man is coming 😎😎😎
I doubt it will be today…. Any indications in the files?
We can use the interrupter to switch every house into Christmas decorations whenever we want. I would love to get such an interrupter to switch my town into… the night ! Imagine how beautiful it would be to get your town enlightened !
Bah humbug!
Maggie – yes!!! (They put your idea of being able to change the heights building appearances, not sure why ghey’ve ignored this). And that star outfit is so cute.
And Santa! We had him as a character with full tasks and then I was just confused when they took him away from us…..why?? (same for Lyle Lanley)
I like the idea of helping friends with gifts….they kinda did that with the steel tree and dropping presents under it, but adding the friend thing/chance of donuts or just being able to give donuts or money to a friend town as a ‘Happy Holidays!’ is a great idea.
Let it snow..
Let it snow ooooh!
The cold never bothered me anyway ☆
Those pesky wabbits. ….always teasing mee ☆
Let it snow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Christmas event!!!!! Yoehoeeeeee!!!!!!!!! Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh
I think having Hanukkah would be great!
And, just to throw out my “Flanders-esque” side, the comment able 4-6 BC, probably isn’t about a pre-Christmas thing, but around how, due to a dating mistake in the middle ages relating to leap year, most archeologists and theologians believe that Jesus was born anywhere during the period between 6 BC – 4 AD.
Ahem! Glavin!
This is my first TSTO Christmas and I’m SO EXCITED. Come on already, EA! Update, update!
I would love to see Maggie as her own character. And snowman armies like in “Mountain of Madness” (had that already been a thing? Like I say, it’s my first TSTO Christmas.)
The cabin and snowmen from that episode have shown up as decorations, but I would love to have wandering snowmen to squish!
I mentioned before that in the end, EA does whatever they want. Adding things to tap that never appeared in the series that they can later sell as NPCs. Maybe it will be the Tap Ball fans again with Santa Hats.. Or Christmas Carolers etc.
A year ago or so there was an Episode where Homer found himself at some weird Christmas party, and there was a dancing reindeer with candy canes hanging from it’s antlers and I remember saying to myself “that would be a cool NPC”.
But honestly getting tired of NPCs, and skins would rather have my Character wish list shrink some more.
That reindeer was “I won’t be home for Christmas” episode.
OMG! I swear I had no idea it was going to come into the game. I just vividly remember when watching the episode thinking it should be an NPC…
And yes these weird merrymakers believe to be pure EA invention.
I was so excited to see S.L.Helper get tasks, I unleashed all my NPCs to make sure I wasn’t missing any others. Then quickly boxed most of them up again.
Looks like my character wish list will get smaller (orphans and a big hint to Maggie) 😀
I’m excited; I missed the event last year, even though I’ve been playing since Easter 2014.
My device crapped out just after Halloween last year and I didn’t get to replace it with my Kindle until the holidays were over.
Come on Christmas!!!! Can’t wait to get some of that great stuff for my Springfield!
Same situation as me. I’ve been disappointed with the events since though, not keen on crafting.
Anyone see a gingerbread man with red hair? Because than it would be a Ginger gingerbread man.
If we get Krusty Santa they Must include Rabbi K. to scold him. But since EA didn’t give us any message or donuts for the beginning of Hanukkah I’m starting to have my doubts. But Ned changing his Christmas Lights from Nativity scene topper to “Festive” maybe there will be a Festivus for the rest of …you know, the other faiths. (But it is Odd that Ned would comply with changing it)