Mum always seemed to end up doing things at the last minute -- no matter how good her intentions were, there always seemed to be some distraction that pulled her away from what she was doing at a crucial moment, and by the time she was done with the distractions, "poof", in one braincell out another, she had totally forgotten about whatever it was that she'd been doing in the first place.

Well, that wasn't going to happen this year, nosirreebob! She was going to get her Frostfell greeting cards out early for once!

Feeling very virtuous, she trudged towards the mailbox in South Qeynos with her stack of carefully-addressed greeting cards. As she dodged a pair of younglings pelting snowballs at each other, she started to mumble to herself about how the Frostfell decorations seemed to go up in the shops earlier and earlier every year.

"Och, listen tae me. I'm starting tae sound like one o' those grumpy grannies I used tae snicker about when I was a youngling. Brasse is right. We are getting auld!" With a wry shake of her head, she vowed to try to "think young thoughts" and continued on her way.

Dodging a patch of ice on the sidewalk that hadn't been sanded yet, she turned the last street-corner before the Inn and the mailbox -- only to be almost bowled over by a pigtailed halfling lady running pell-mell while chanting "Frostyfell! Frostyfell!"

"Boola-lass! Watch out frae th' ..." A squeal and a crash sounded from around the corner. "... ice."

Stuffing the cards back in her pack, she hurried to make sure that Boola hadn't broken anything ... this time. Thankfully, she had nothing more than a few bumps and scrapes, and was quickly off to run amok in the Frostfell Wonderland Village, with Niami following more slowly behind her. After all, she really should see if there were any new recipe books, and if Santa Glug had any new gifts this years, right?

It wasn't until several hours later that she returned home, laden with Frostfell Shopping bags filled to the brim, that she realized she'd never mailed the greeting cards. "Ah well, I'm nae late wi' 'em ... yet!"

This is one of the new personalized greeting cards that can be crafted this year, that acts exactly like the player-made notebooks.

Frostfell, EverQuest II's mid-winter holiday festival, is just around the corner, complete with daily gifts to claim, glowies to grab, quests to run, items to craft and gifts to harvest. (Frostfell will run from the morning of December 10, 2009 to the morning of January 7, 2009)

Yep, I said gifts to harvest.

For those of you not familiar with the event, a magic closet will be available in the various cities (Qeynos Harbor near the clocktower, West Freeport across from the bank, Kelethin near Joleena's pub, at the bottom of the lifts in Gorowyn, and in the Foreign Quarter in Neriak) leading to a Frostfell Wonderland instance. On top of containing several quests, Santa Glug (who will give you a random gift once every 24 hours), and purple glowies for a special collection, this instance contains harvestable present nodes bearing resources needed for Frostfell crafting.

While I'll go into more detail on the Frostfell crafting in a separate article (to make it easier to view as a furniture gallery), note that whatever character you have harvesting and crafting for Frostfell will need at least a 20 gathering skill, 2 bag slots for the harvestables, and empty bags for the items made. Recipes can be scribed at artisan level 2, but be aware that the recipes themselves are level 30 recipes. You can craft them at lower levels, but you'll be really struggling with the combines. I'd personally recommend that if you're one of those who plan on using a dedicated Frostfell crafting mule, that you prep them in advance by getting them at least into the teens in a crafting profession via the crafting tutorial, and then rested back up to full vitality.

In past years, there have been many complaints in the SOE forums about Frostfell being too cheery for the evil folks, and many of the complaints did not abate after the dead Frostfell tree quest last year, etc. (Excuse me, it isn't dead, it is only sleeping!) So, this year, you will find a few craftables have a rather macabre theme to them, suited for some of the more morbid folks. Mind you, this won't stop the complaints, it will just shift the complaints from one group of folks to another group of folks, proving, once again, that you can't please everyone, no matter what you do! {grin}

While the 2008 Frostfell craftables that can be crafted again this year are in the Frostfell 2008 Image Gallery, they have also been added to the bottom of the New Frostfell 2009 Craftables Gallery as well.

As mentioned above, Santa Glug is back again this year, giving you a gift once every 24 hours, if you hail him. Things like the sack of coal and shiny baubles are returning, and some new items, including glass baubles, have been added to his stockpile of prezzies.

shiny bauble

glass bauble

glass bauble

quest reward

Icy Keep

You can find the Glacial Furniture Gallery here, already updated with the new furniture being added for Frostfell 2009.

strange Frostfell sights are seen after Lera baits Brenlo too much about gelatinous cube mounts at Fan Faire!