Toy Day returns to Animal Crossing: New Horizons on December 24, commemorating the return of Jingle, the black-nosed reindeer, and the chance for players to step into the role of Santa Claus and deliver special gifts to their residents on Christmas Eve. Starting in December, players will be able to purchase special Toy Day items at Nook's Cranny, including campfire stockings and, of course, plenty of brand new toys.

Before the Toy Day event proper, players will want to stock up on toys to donate to their residents and decorate their homes and islands. Some are especially suitable for rustic furniture, such as a children's tent. This Animal Crossing item is a small triangular tent filled with pillows. It comes in eight variants - white, pink, black, blue and white striped, yellow, blue and yellow, brown and a basic color with circus stripes - and it resembles the Rustic Tent Amenity in Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. This particular item doesn't do anything fancy, but it's incredibly cute.

In the meantime, players who like mom's plush item - which is customizable and which may look like a brown and white puppy but isn't interactive - are likely to love the Puppy Plushie. This item also has eight color variations - beige, red, lemon and white, spotted, black, pink, tricolor, and gray and white - and will wave, "bow" and bark. Everyone wears a collar and also walks in place and moves their mouths when they make a noise.

Although Dolly has been in the game since her debut in March, players had to settle for Happy Home Academy or even DIY Doghouses trophies to create doll scenes. The New Horizons winter update finally introduces a real dollhouse, which comes in seven color variations - red, brown, blue, orange, green, pink, and purple - which largely match Dolly's colors. When a player or villager interacts with the dollhouse, he can turn the interior lighting on and off (and leave it at his discretion).

Another item that brings improvements over previously non-interactive objects in the game is the Pop-Up Book, which comes in four varieties: Ocean Blue, The Mesozoic World, Savannah and Flowers. Each has a different cover and when you interact with it, it opens to reveal a different pop-up scene. Villagers often read ordinary books from New Horizons players around the islands, but interaction with the Book item is impossible. Pop-up books help to fix this error.

In addition to the four toys above, there are also some with slightly more useful interactive features. Available in eight colors - silver, blue, red, orange, yellow, green, pink and black - the tin robot moves its arms and walks into place when the player presses the A button to activate it. This step is limited and will be repeated several times before the tin robot turns itself off, like a wind-up toy.

Available in five versions - gray, brown, green, blue and red - the dinosaur toy resembles the Tyrannosaurus Rex and switches between two positions when activated. Stands with mouth closed and claws down, or appears to be running with claws raised and teeth bared. Players have already started using them to stage the infamous Jurassic World velociraptor scene in 2015.

Finally, there are two new toys in Animal Crossing: New Horizons that are great for RC fans or Hot Wheels fans. The mini-circuit is available in four versions - red and white, blue and yellow, black and silver or pink and purple - and can be placed on the floor or on top of another object such as a table. Once activated, two cards on track eight will race against each other in an endless loop until someone turns the toy off.

The RC helicopter is one of the biggest and probably the coolest additions to New Horizons for Toy Day 2020. This item comes in seven colors - blue, red, yellow, green, pink, light blue and purple - and will actually hover over the sky. a few seconds and then land upon activation. Probably due to the height it flies, this item can only be placed on the floor and not on a table or shelf.

In keeping with Animal Crossing's other gender neutral approach to clothing and items, none of the new toys for Toy Day are specifically attributed to gender. The villagers will be happy to receive all of these items, in any color variation, although they all have their favorite colors - and if you gift them items or clothes in these colors, you'll earn extra friendship points for the player.

The winter update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons is available now and seasonal items will be available at Nook's Cranny and via Nook Shopping at the Resident Services kiosk starting in December. Toy Day takes place the evening of Dec. 24, in local time, for players around the world.

Dec-17-2020