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What Are the 2019 Yule Festival Dates?

It’s Yule-tide: Time to honour the past and look forward to the future in Middle-Earth! Let thebegin! Packed with quests from helping the poor (or not), eating competitions and more. It’s time for all races and players to converge on Winter-Home in Frost-Bluff for some Yule celebrations. As we gear up for Christmas and the Holiday Season, you can have fun with friends in-game and out-of-game too! And now I’ve done them, you can see the new mount, cosmetics and pet!

This year’s fest will run from 12th December 2019 (10am /servertime) – 9th January 2020 (3am /servertime).

Yule Festival Encore

Yule Festival encore Dates: The next Encore has not been scheduled yet. The last one was in April. Keep an eye on my LOTRO Events Calendar for when dates are announced.

How to Use This Yule Festival Guide

Simply click/tap the link below to find links to skip to what you want to know! In the bottom right of your screen there is an up-arrow to return you to the top of the page. Alternatively you can press your browser’s (or mobile device’s) back button to return to this menu!



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Shared Quest Goals (Mostly)

What I like about the Game Mechanics of this festival is that most goals are shared. You can set off the same box of fireworks as another player. You can pick the same food ingredients. The main exceptions to this surround the beggars. Beggars can receive gifts and stay in place, or be told to move off and they do. These can’t (usually) be shared. Respawn time is about 1 minute, so be patient! Cold As Ice and Unwilling Firewood mobs respawn much quicker than this, it seems.

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Earning Festival Tokens

Spirit of Yule Daily gives 2 Tokens and some Essence Fragments

Daily gives 2 Tokens and some Essence Fragments Most Yule Festival Quests give 4 Yule Festival Tokens .

. The staged Deed also grants tokens and/or Golden Festival Tokens.

There is a daily, cunningly called “Yule Festival” – you get an alert about that gives 2 Tokens and a Bag Of Presents (when you had the quest in to Mara Sandydowns) when you complete any quest in Frost-Bluff.

The bag of presents so far has yielded: Marks, Medallions, a Decoration and the odd Essence Fragment. 4 × Fragments can be traded for an Essence Box in Winter-Home.

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Festival Quests In and Around Winter-Home Village

Stolen Sweets (New to 2018!)

This is available during the Vacation in Frostbluff event. It also appears during Yule Festival. As it’s outside of Winter-Home, it’s hidden, but you can read it by clicking/tapping below.

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Sweets destined for the Poor Children of Winter-Home have been stolen by various snow-dwelling creatures and carried away across Eriador. You must retrieve them and then deliver them to the children to brighten up their Yule-tide! Note: the creatures you need are in areas up to around L45, so if you want to do this quest under level, get the help of another player. I’m not doing a guide to this quest as The Wiki has an excellent walk-through already! But once you complete it you receive: Title: Bringer of Sweets

Bringer of Sweets Pet Tome: Yule Rabbit (Screenie below!), which has a snowflake animation. ↑ Guide Menu



Winter-Home’s Beggars

Winter time is not a season of celebration for everyone. The village houses some of the downtrodden members of society. This includes some who have lost their jobs thanks to the Mayor. Initially there are two quests which involve these poor souls.

Note: you cannot have both Moving Them Off and A Charitable Spirit active at the same time.

Moving them Off – 4 Yule Fest Tokens

According to the Mayor’s attitude, these beggars diminish people’s experience of the festivities (even though he caused the situation). So Guard Kember asks you to tell them to move them away. Not a joyous task!

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A Charitable Spirit (Deducts 5 Tokens)

The complete polar opposite of this is the quest A Charitable Spirit from Quest-Giver Daley Utteridge. This time you go to the same 5 Beggars in Winter-Home and donate a Yule Festival token to each of them, and maybe an apology for being forced to treat them harshly!

There is a Hidden Deed for this Quest. When you have completed A Charitable Spirit 10 times, it completes the deed Such Generosity. This deed awards you:

50 × Yule Fest Tokens

Title: The Openhanded

Eating Competition – The Biggest Stomach of Them All

I’ve tried this a few times and managed to reach the third table in the end. Timed missions don’t work well with me. However, @Teriadwyn gave me these couple of tips:

Swifty & Hammo have some ways to maximise your stomach’s capacity!

As always LOTRO Wiki has an excellent guide

Teriadwyn also pointed out: “there is no timer at the first table, so you can wait out the debuffs. You can also wait out your competition, since there is a limited amount of food available.

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GLOBE Theatre of Winter-Home

While the longest way to earn just 4 Yule Festival Tokens, you can go and watch a showing of “Mad Baggins” at the GLOBE Theatre. There is also a random chance of you being selected to play a part in the production!

As an actor/actress, you need to perform an action when told to (e.g. dance, belch…anything off the chat panel list!). If you are appreciated, the crowd may throw sparkles at you. If you act badly, rotten fruit will come your way!

Sparkles and Rotten Fruit are available at the Concessions stand, tendered by the ingeniously named ‘Hobbit’.

There are Deeds (and therefore Tokens) available for throwing the petals/rotten fruit.

So long as you arrive in the Theatre before the production ends, you’ll be credited at having ‘Attended a Performance’ and get your 4 Festival Tokens

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GLOBE Theatre: As an Audience Member

As the show progresses, actors/actresses are required to perform emotes. You should quick-slot your petals and rotten fruit to make this easi

If they perform an appropriate one, then you can throw Petals at them.

at them. If you hear a ‘boo’ then the bad actor/actress is indicated. Select them and throw the rotten fruit!

Both throwing Flower-Petals and rotten fruits have deeds, and from Tier 2, Titles!

Fruit Hucker title

title Petal-Pusher title

There are also a few LOTRO Points up for grabs as well!

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Titles from GLOBE Theatre

If you don’t like the prospect of a career in acting, then you can buy the titles for 10 Yule Festival Tokens. You can earn these titles by playing different roles on-stage and performing well (or badly!). Click/Tap the image below to see the availble Titles for purchase!



Build a Snowman! Build Many Snowmen (well, at least 5)

What Yule-Tide Celebration would be complete without building a snowman or … 5. To build your snowman you’ll have to gather materials from Winter Home and also around the Frost-Bluff region as a whole. Only when you have all the components can you build and dress-up your Snowman!

There is a Cold Reception Deed, which grants two things:

Broken Snowman Decoration for your Homestead. Other snowman types (e.g. Mitten-Wearing Snowman) are available from the Barter Vendor New Title: Gatherer of Cool Company

The condition is that you build the– not just 5 snowmen. Oh and you will need an acorn, or acorns for your snowmen. Turn on Floaty Names, as it makes them much easier to find! There is a cluster of acorns nearby the Quest-Giver, so you don’t need to roam far. Other components are in the screenshots below!

To find out where the best cluster of acorns is, see the standalone screenshot near this write-up.

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Cold As Ice – 4 Tokens

You have a quest to go and defeat the cold. I think these are called Cold-Weather Grims, but I’m sure the community will correct me if I’m wrong! You need to defeat 4 Cold Weather Grims for completion. Ranged users will have no problem here. Melée Classes may get blinded! Here’s how I deal with them on my Lore Master!



Empty Keg Emergency – the Quickest 4 Tokens

Empty Keg Emergency requires you to steal a full keg of ale and get it to the patrons before the guards (Watchers) spot you. Having watched other player (in a non-creepy way) this is the quickest way. Turn on floaty names to help you avoid the Watchers!



Making Mischief – 4 Tokens

The workers of Winter-Home are not happy with the way they are being treated, and how little food they get during the “festive” period. So it’s time to get one over the on Mayor and set off his fireworks early!



While wealthier patrons are distracted by the impromptu firework display, you need to pick their pockets and return some coin to the poor folk of Winter-Home.

Unwilling Firewood – 4 Tokens

Apparently the firewood the Mayor demands has to be the ‘best’. However the best wood comes from Angry Trees. Well given you are about to turn them into kindling I think they have a right to be angry! And the Mayor won’t go and face these trees, so you have to! Here’s one of these beauties – click/tap if you really want a close-up!



Venture out into Frostbluff and defeat 9 of these trees to keep Winter-Home warm!

Tidying Up – 4 Tokens

Festivals in Middle Earth attract a lot of party-goers. And where there are people and food, mess is made! So it’s time to do your bit in keeping Winter-Home tidy and clear up all those unsightly messes left around the village! You can find spills and dirty plates throughout Winter-Home (click/tap image for larger one):



To complete the quest you will need to clear:

Dirty Dishes × 10

Reeking Garbage × 10 (nice!)

Liquid Spills × 10

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The Abominable Snow-Beasts – 4 Tokens

Frostbluff is home to more than just people and snowmen! Out in the countryside around Winter-Home live Abominable Snow-Beasts. You are tasked with trying to cheer them up in the spirit of Yule!



To do this simply head up to the Snow-Beasts and hit the “Cheer” emote.

Technically you need to try to cheer up 3 Snow-Beasts

Buuuut if it’s busy, and to reduce annoying other players if you hit the button quickly 3 times you can compelte the quest

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Stuffing the Stuffed – 4 Tokens

As if people didn’t eat enough during the Winter festivities! Now you need to help make even more food (so that the Patrons can make more mess for you to clean up!). But the expectations of the Mayor and his Wife are sky-high so you have to deiver only the best!

This involves:

Baking Bread × 3 at the Servants’ Oven



(near to the quest for Cold as Ice

Quests Outside of Frostbluff

As with other LOTRO Festivals, there are other quests dotted around Middle-Earth that grant tokens. The main locations for this are: Bree-land Festival Grounds, the Party Tree, Thorin’s Hall Inn and Duillond.

These quests are repeatable daily, which grant an additional 16 Tokens a Day.

Quests in Bree-land

There are a couple of quests in Bree-land which grant Festival Tokens, as well as the Horse Race. But be warned if you are under Level 15, there are some mobs of L18 in the area.

The Quest-Givers are in the Bree Festival Grounds:

An Ailing Tradition of Ale (2 YuleFest Tokens)

I’ll let the quest-giver do the talking here, so click/tap the screenshots below for more details! In short you need to head to the water near Thornley’s Work Site (approximately 26.8S,54W) and grab an Ale-Cask to take back with you. You don’t have to run back to the Festival Grounds with it. It just fits into your enormous pocketses!

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More Boar for Bree (2 YuleFest Tokens)

Festivals can never have too much food which means you need to go pick up Boar meat. Thankfully you don’t have to kill boars, however there are some roughly L18 Wolves and Boars en route to the area marked on the map. You need to pick your way around those (if you’re below level) and retrieve 5 slabs of ex-Boar. They look like this:

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Quests in Duillond

Near the Duillond Elf-Dance NPC, are two Elves with repeatable, daily quests.

The Season of Merry-Making (2 YuleFest Tokens)

If you’re an Elf or High Elf, ignore Saervereth’s poorly-veiled insult to you being a “child”! She wants you to go find mistletoe as part of the traditional reminder of Spring’s rebirth.

You’ll find trees bearing Mistletoe North of Duillond, towards Thrasi’s Lodge. You need to collect Mistletoe from 5 Trees. Hendrovail and Bears wander around here, so if you’re a low-ish level, just be aware you may need to fight for your mistletoe!

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Wreathed in Fir (2 YuleFest Tokens)

The Elf Anglalaith wants help to make wreaths of fir to give as gifts to others. You can find Fir bushes near to Tham Gelair. Note, Wolves and Boars roam in this area. You need to collect branches from 5 different Fir bushes. You cannot collect branches from a bush you’ve looted already, even after it respawns.

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Quests at Thorin’s Hall

Inside the Thorin’s Hall Inn are two Dwarves ready for you to show Festive cheer and run errands for them!



Snow for a White Yule (2 Tokens)

Glói, the poor Dwarf, has decided Bree-land deserve some snow sent from the Blue Mountains. All so they can truely embrace Yule. Bless him.

You need to pick up 8 × Snow Piles for him to load on his cart! Oh and these seem to fit in your pockets too!

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Imi wants help to make a special dessert! All he needs are 3 × special berries and for some ice chipped from the nearby frozen waterfall. Using this waterfall is a little tricky, so I suggest putting floaty names on (N-key is the deafult) and right-clicking that instead of trying to find the clickable bits.

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Quests in The Shire

There are two Quest-givers at the Party Tree. There’s also a separate Yuletide Woes story where Lobelia Sackville-Baggins has decided she is the Yule Party planner! This does not grant tokens but does give a Yule Tree decoration reward. See the Wiki for full details.

Ribbons and Bows (2 Tokens)

All the gifts are ready, but in true Hobbit style if the bows and ribbons aren’t done the festivities will be a total disaster! Your task is to find the shipment of ribbon due from Overhill and collect flowers to dye them with!

5 × Boxes of Ribbon: these are by the road on the way to Overhill.

these are by the road on the way to Overhill. 5 × Blue Flowers: in the bit of Bindbole Wood near the Party Tree.

in the bit of Bindbole Wood near the Party Tree. 5 × Red Berries: in the same area as the blue flowers.

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Good Cheer and Warm Cider (2 Tokens)

Samfast Longburrow, clearly distracted at the Party Tree, has run out of apples to make his annual special cider. You need to simply hop over to Appledores and pick up 5 × Apples. Yes, they’re in piles of 3 or 4 but you have to loot 5 piles of apples!

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Battle at Frostbluff

Battle at Frostbluff is a Seasonal Instance (Skirmish-like) only available during Yule Festival (and its Encore). The children of Winter-home have built snow forts but these have been overrun by winter spirits and vicious creatures. Your job is to clear the forts and reclaim Frostbluff for them!

Although you can only complete the deed (for the Encounters during the Skirmish) if mobs are not grey/trivial, you can still earn 5 Festivity Tokens and 6 YuleFest tokens if you run the Seasonal Instance at Level 10.

Frostbluff’s Frosty Beasts Deed

Once you have defeated each of the (randomly chosen) beasts you can earn The Frosted title. Two Encounters spawn on each run.



Battle at Frostbluff Video

Festivity Token Rewards

Festivity Tokens can be earned during any Festival where Seasonal Instances are available. You can then barter these at the Festivity Tokens vendor for special rewards. I’ll update the cosmetics later.

This Year’s Festivity Token Cosmetics

2019 saw some knitted items added to the Festivity Token vendor! These cost 20 Festivity Tokens a piece. But they dye very well and others have said they fit all races and genders nicely too.

Knitted Cozy Frostbluff Cap

Knitted Frostbluff Mitts of Comfort

Knitted Frostbluff Tunic of Snowball Resistance (snappy name!)

Knitted Cosmetics Screenshots

All items are now below,



Battle At Frostbluff Cloak – 10 Festivity Tokens

And here’s a preview window of the whole set:The whole set dyes very well, so here’s the Tunic/Jumper dyed burgundy to show you:

Celebrate liberating the kids’ kingom of Frostbluff with a snowman cloak! As usual there is a hooded version and as usual I only want the hoodless one:



Last Year’s Festivity Cosmetics – 10 Festivity Tokens/Piece

For Festivity Tokens you can barter for Storvâgûn‘s spare clothes! There are other rewards but I have yet to pick them up.



The full list of items can be found on the Wiki here (just tap ‘Yule’ on that page).

Festivity Token Pets

Tome of the Snow Not-So-Grim – 20 Festivity Tokens



Yule Festival Rewards

2019 Yule Festival Mounts

There are two main Yule Festival Mounts on offer. Both can be purchased with Festival Tokens: the new Ice Flowwer Steed (80 Tokens) and Herald of the Northern Star (60 Tokens).

Ice Flower Steed – 2019’s Mount



War-Steed Cosmetics

If, like me, you were confused to not find the war-steed cosmetics at the usual barter vendor, then never fear! You can instead, speak to Dawson Berwick who is just outside Winter-Home. Each piece of the Yule War-steed Cosmetics costs 80 YuleFest Tokens for this year’s appearances.



Last year’s can also be purchased from the same vendor for

Outfit Cosmetic Rewards

Here is a sample (ha!) of the Cosmetic Outfit Rewards available at the Festival.

2019’s Cosmetics

The theme for 2019’s cosmetics is “Ice Flower”.

Ice Flower Crown – 35 YuleFest Tokens



A Hooded version of the Ice Flower Cloak is also available.

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Last Year’s (2018) Cosmetics: Northern Sky

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Cosmetic Pets

At this event there are a number of creatures you can obtain as pets. There are also four ‘Grims’ you can obtain. The remaining pets are Kites, if that’s your thing!

New for 2019: Tome of the White Wolf-Dog

Tome of the Snowy Barn Owl: 75 Yule Fest Tokens

Tome of the White Hare: 75 Yule Fest Tokens

Tome of the Snow Owl: 75 Yule Fest Tokens

Tome of the Fire Grim: 75 Yule Fest Tokens

Tome of the Shadow Grim: 75 Yule Fest Tokens

Tome of the Grim: 75 Yule Fest Tokens

Kites

Thanks to @delphs for providing me with screenshots of the Kites from this event!

Kite of the Sickle – 75 Tokens

Winter’s Flower Kite – 75 Tokens

Dyes (For Tokens)

You can obtain the following dyes for 30 Yule Fest Tokens per stack:

Dark Mossy Green Dyes × 6

Belegaer Blue Dyes × 6

The folowing dyes can be purchased for 10 Mithril Coins:

Moria Silver Dyes × 6

Lórien Gold Dyes × 6

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Emotes

There’s one key emote available this year.

Frost Breath Emote

Decorations

Déco du Milieu feature the decorations avaiable at this event on their website! As such, I don’t put them here. So browse their site before choosing your festive décor!

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Frequently Asked Questions

What Are Golden Festival Tokens?

The Yule Festival has a unique barter currency: Golden Festival Tokens. These can be used, alongside normal tokens, to buy certain cosmetics – namely the Horned Snow-Beast Cloak and the accompanying boots.

You can obtain Golden Festival Tokens either by exchanging 75 Yule Fest Tokens or by completing various stages of The More the Merrier deed.

No other event has this currency, and you can’t use them to buy boxes of tokens for future festivals. So ensure any unused ones are converted back to Yule ones before the event ends!

Why Can’t I Buy The Latest Mount? Why Is It Greyed Out?

For characters that are new to the event, having enough Yule Fest tokens is not enough to buy the latest mount. You have to have completed Tier 1 of The More The Merrier deed.

All you have to do is partake in 20 Yule Quests. For that you get

1 × Golden Festival Token (which is worth 75 standard tokens if you exchange it)

Ability to barter tokens for mounts

Extra cosmetics from the barter vendor under “The More the Merrier Rewards”

TL;DR LOTRO Yule Festival

Fun, slightly addictive and with some attractive cosmetic gear from the Barter Vendors the LOTRO Yule Festival is great to attend, even if you just go a couple of times. There are some other tips from the community in the comments, please do read them!