Another winter has passed on Tansan and the snow has finally melted. The grass is back! There were a few events that happened February quite close to each other, so I wanted to do a general February recap as Tansan saw an unusual amount of activity compared to the last few years. This post will cover: Valentines Day, Festivale, Lunar New Year, and a bit of a departure, but IKI’s birthday on Fantasy Life.
Valentine's Day
Normally I don’t really know what to do with the chocolates, but this time around I decided not to hoard them aimlessly and instead eat them to give me strength to break rocks. I don’t have a rock garden or designated permenant rocks, so it’s still part of my daily routine to look for the daily rock or fossils, etc. I usually wait a few days before harvesting and breaking all of them.
For certain holidays, I like to stage family photo shoots with me and all my villagers so we can commemorate the event together, as you’ll see with my Lunar New Years family photo below. For my Valentine’s Day shoot, I did something a little different and recreated my dinner date with my boyfriend. We went out for a double date, me and my boyfriend, and my brother and his wife. I didn’t include my brother and his wife in the picture (sorry, bro). Instead, Jambette, Ursala, Tasha, and Tabby tagged along to have their own Galentine’s Day. Thank you Cyd and Hamphrey for working on Valentine’s Day!
Lunar New Year
Lunar New Year 2022 - Year of the Rabbit | 2024 - Year of the Dragon
And a few days later, we celebrated Lunar New Year! There’s nothing to do on the island in the actual game for this event but I did take a new family photo for the occasion. I’ve done this a few years now, at least for 2022, 2024, and now 2026.
Lunar New Year 2026 - Year of the Horse
On that note, I might eventually make a compilation of all the Photopia photoshoots I’ve taken over the years with my island family (the ones I can find at least) and post them into a single page or blog post.
Festivale
The next holiday was Festivale! Since I’ve already collected the items from the first few Festivales, I rarely play the actual event but I usually come on to take some photos of my villagers dancing and being cute in their little outfits.
I was curious whether or not visiting tourists will join in on the celebrations and dance or if they will just walk around and stare awkwardly. It was the latter, haha.
It only hit me until later when I went back to play in the evening after work that I could at least force them to change into costumes so they don't stick out too much! By that point I was already too tired though so I didn't take many photos.
I also reskinned my beach the night before in preparation for Festivale in case villagers wanted to grab a cocktail and dance on the stage. But unfortunately not a lot of villagers ventured out there except for Tasha, who lived right behind this beach. I also saw tourist Yuka enjoying the beach decor earlier in the day.
I eventually moved the festivale stages to the Resident services. I set up my tripod and waited for a few different villagers to come to the stage, but it was hard to get all 3 spots filled at the same time, or even for them to interact with the drums, so I often jumped in with them. Taking photos of villagers is like a game of pokemon snap. Why is it unnecessarily challenging? 😫
Some factors I noticed that interrupts the villager's flow state: tourists waving at them (they are shy), another villager joining the dance (Tansan villagers enjoy hogging the spotlight), me joining in (my moves are not satisfactory).
Some more photos from Festivale...
IKI's Birthday Party
IKI's birthday in 2020 on Tinytree and in 2021 on Tansan
Technically, the first celebration of the month should have been IKI’s birthday party! I always try to make it a tradition to host IKI’s birthday on some kind of gaming platform, but the tradition started on New Leaf and carried over to New Horizons. Recently I’ve not been able to connect peer to peer on ACNH (specifically) for the life of me, so I sadly I could not celebrate it on Tansan for the past few years.
I only just got back into the game to play the update after putting it off for quite some time and I had forgotten just how much effort put into my base camp. So even if it’s not AC related, I may post a showcase of my base camp in full in another post. Here’s some more photos of IKI, poqu and I in some different spots!
Hamphrey's Birthday
Finally, the last birthday in February goes to Hamphrey! I usually stage photopia shoots for my villagers birthdays too if I have time to. I could only find one photopia birthday celebration I did with Hamphrey back in 2022, where we went to a bonsai workshop. So this year we went on a fishing trip! Hamphrey knew a shack out by the lake. We took the same crew from his 2022 party, plus Scoot.
The Day the Snow Melts!
Even when I was an active player I rarely made it through a whole winter on ACNH. I would often check in for holidays before hibernating once again. I live in a tropical country now so I never experience winter here either, but I still don’t really long for it.
I have seen some dream islands specifically designed around the winter season, which always looked so cozy and well thought out. But a lot of my decor items that I don't want to switch out for the season, always stick out like a sore thumb.
In the end, I’m always waiting patiently for Spring to roll round again. That's why I always mark down the day the snow melts and hop on to see the drastic change! It's like a mini holiday of sorts. Even if everything is still a bit drab, it's definitely a welcomed change to blanket whiteness covering everything. I'm ready for Spring to breathe life back into Tansan again.
The first day of Spring started off with a rainy morning, but the villagers were still out in full force with their umbrellas and rain hats (and if you're Jambette the frog, just enjoying life in their natural habitat). It was also a cute detail that Hotel tourists are given hotel umbrellas for rainy days!
Although I kind of skipped over January entirely and played quite steadily through February, I do hope that the snow melting does incentivize me to play or check in somewhat consistently. At least in a manner where I could do monthly recaps like this when possible! For now, there's a few areas and builds in town I want to rethink or edit now that I can see things more clearly and I'm not blinded by the snow.