Winter Thanksgiving in HM Boy & Girl

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The Thanksgiving Festivals in most Harvest Moon games are based on gender. There are two Thanksgiving Festivals each year. At the Spring Thanksgiving, boys give gifts to girls. At the Winter Thanksgiving, it is the girls who give gifts to boys.

In Harvest Moon Boy & Girl, as a boy at the Winter Thanksgiving, I would receive either chocolate or chocolate cake from every girl at blue heart level or higher. Chocolate is given only at Blue heart level. For Green heart level or higher, you will obtain Chocolate Cake.

The difficulty here is the fact that the Supermarket does not sell chocolate in this game. If you wish to complete your Cookbook, you need at least two pieces of chocolate. A married man no longer receives Thanksgiving gifts from any one but his wife and if you do not keep your wife at the highest red heart level, she will not become pregnant. Once you have a child, I expect you could decrease her level to the point where she would slip chocolate into your rucksack on the Winter Thanksgiving instead of Cake but that is long in the future in my game... In order to obtain chocolate NOW, I needed to bring at least two girls back down to Blue Heart level before they visited me on 14 Winter.

Thanksgiving visits adhere to a strict schedule in every game and knowing when a girl or bachelor is scheduled to visit is critical. If you are not on the farm at the right time, you will miss the visit and the gift.

The schedule of the visits of all the eligible girls in Harvest Moon Boy & Girl is as follows:

6.00 a.m. Popuri
8.00 a.m. Ann
10.00 a.m. Elli
1.00 p.m. Karen
3.00 p.m. Mary

If, therefore, you wish to receive gifts from ALL the girls and have them all at a high enough heart level to be able to expect to do so, you basically have to hover round your farm most of the day. This is the case in most Harvest Moon games. In fact, in HM DS and HM Cute DS, you actually have to exit your farmhouse each time at the right hour to experience the event. In Boy & Girl, you merely have to be standing in your field when the individual arrives.

Of all the girls, it is Mary's visit that is the most amusing. She either does not realise that it is the Winter Thanksgiving or pretends not to realise... she tells you that the Supermarket had a sale on chocolate and chocolate cake so she decided to buy some and to share it with you. She then remarks that it all must have been sold by now, to prevent you from having any remote hope that these items now will be available from the Supermarket... As she speaks, she suddenly realises that it is the Winter Thanksgiving or pretends to realise it. I suspect that she is pretending. Mary can be rather shy, so she may be too embarrassed to present her gift in a straightforward manner. After all, it is the equivalent of a Valentine.

Elli's presentation is rather amusing as well. I like Elli but when as her parting remark, she advised me to brush my teeth afterwards to prevent cavities, I realised once again how well she and the Doctor are suited to one another, far better a match than I ever could be for her.

Karen's parting remark to the effect that she will be expecting a return gift on the occasion of the Spring Thanksgiving is very characteristic of her forthright nature.
For all her undeniable femininity, she is a very dominant woman and this distinguishes her from some one like Muffy, equally feminine and flirtatious but rather incapable of getting what she wants in life.

As you can see, each girl has her own distinct personality and her own way of presenting a gift to a boy she likes. It is one of the reasons I like to experience all possible events in any Harvest Moon games.

Players often ask me which girl or bachelor is the 'best'. Interacting with some one always is the best way to find out what sort of person he/she is. You do this in Harvest Moon by experiencing events and by talking to the individual as often as possible. To me, the voyage of discovery is part of the fun of playing Harvest Moon. I would not want any one to tell me which girl or bachelor I should marry any more than in real life!

Poor Popuri: Playing with Heart Levels in Harvest Moon

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In Harvest Moon Boy & Girl as well as Harvest Moon DS and Harvest Moon Cute DS, the gift that you receive at the Thanksgiving Festival depends on the precise heart level that the giver has for you. If the heart level is too low, you will not receive a gift at all. At blue heart level, you will receive a piece of chocolate. At green heart or higher, you will receive a piece of chocolate cake.

In Harvest Moon DS and Cute DS, you need not bother to try to obtain the lower level of gift, as chocolate is sold at the Supermarket. It is more fun to have every one at deepest red heart level by the time of the Thanksgiving Festival. As a girl, you will have to wait until the Spring of the 2nd year to receive these visits but as a boy, your first opportunity is the Winter Thanksgiving in the first year.

In Harvest Moon Boy & Girl, heart levels climbed steadily upwards even though I was not being particularly diligent in Winter, as I still needed to experience the Green Rival Heart Event for all of the girls and this cannot be triggered in the first year, as far as my own evidence shows. I did believe I could trigger the 4th and final heart event for the girls but so far, even though I have two of them at Yellow Heart level and almost at orange, I have not been able to trigger the final heart event in the first year. I am beginning to wonder if these events must be triggered in the second year or if they are season-specific and cannot be triggered in Winter in the case of Elli, Mary and Ann.

At any rate, I had Elli, Mary and Ann at yellow heart and Karen and Popuri at green heart as the Winter Thanksgiving day arrived. I then received Chocolate Cake from all five girls. This was not good, because I needed chocolate to complete my cookbook.

I therefore was obliged to replay the events after visiting both Karen and Popuri with a rucksack filled with rubbish I had caught with my Fishing Pole and giving it to them... When their heart levels were reduced to Blue, I stopped the torture and waited for the gifts...

At Blue Heart, thankfully, I received chocolate instead of chocolate cake. Now I can raise the heart levels of those poor girls again...

One really NEEDS at least two pieces of chocolate in order to complete all Recipes in the Cookbook. That is why I had to obtain the chocolate at any cost. If I allow these girls to marry my rivals, I no longer will receive Thanksgiving Day gifts from them. If I marry, I no longer will receive gifts from any one apart from my spouse. I therefore decided that my first year was the best option for this exercise.

I now have two pieces of chocolate in my Refrigerator and can make my own Chocolate Cake and Chocolate Cookies, thus adding those recipes to my Cookbook. Poor Popuri and Karen must be wondering about my erratic behaviour, blowing alternately hot and cold towards them!

The photographs show Karen at two different heart levels on the occasion of the Winter Thanksgiving in the first year. On the first occasion, I did nothing to change her level and at green heart level, she brought me a piece of Chocolate Cake, the same gift I received from the other girls this year.

On the second occasion, I rushed to the Supermarket and plied her with rubbish until her heart level decreased to blue. When she arrived at the farm later, she gave me a piece of chocolate instead of the chocolate cake I would have received had I kept her level at green.

Perhaps the title of this should be 'Poor Karen and Popuri', as the photographs I have included here show Karen at two different heart levels, but where Popuri is concerned, this is the SECOND time I have lowered her heart level only to raise it again later...

Recipes vary from Game to Game: Take Care!

I have written Cookbook Recipe Guides for almost every Harvest Moon game I have played. Many basic recipes are the same essentially from game to game but there are those that differ and when they do, mistakes can be costly.

There are differences in the Utensils that are available from game to game. Although recipes tend to be easier in Harvest Moon DS and Cute DS, I for one miss the Seasoning Set from Mineral Town games. Seasonings often are optional but once in awhile, can be critical to the success of a cooking venture.

For example, Ketchup in HM DS and HM Cute DS is made in a Mixer with a Tomato and an Onion. In Boy & Girl, you MUST use seasonings or it will be a Food Fiasco. The actual utensil used to make Mayonnaise in Boy & Girl is different from that used in HM DS and Cute DS. A Whisk is used in Boy & Girl, where a Mixer is used in HM DS and Cute DS. Recipes in FoMT and MFoMT are virtually identical to those in Boy & Girl, though, so if you have been playing either of those recently, and go on to play Boy & Girl, you will not be in any danger of becoming confused.

As a matter of fact, the special Recipes that are given to you by various villagers are given in the same words in many instances. I am waiting now to see if Anna holds a Baking Class in Boy & Girl on Saturday mornings. So far, although Manna delivered her set speech about Anna's expertise in baking, there have been no actual classes. It is early days, though...

Incidentally, if you are not fastidious by nature, you can eat your Food Fiasco for a little boost in energy. A gift of a Food Fiasco is useful if you wish to lower heart levels as well.

As in many Harvest Moon games, the actual gift that you receive at the Thanksgiving Festival will depend on heart level. If you wish to obtain all possible gifts, you need to have the eligible girls at different heart levels. As a boy, at the lowest level, you will obtain chocolate, ironically more rare an item in HM Boy & Girl than Chocolate Cake.

More Winter Thanks-Fest Responses

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In my previous post, I dealt with Rock and Gustafa and their responses to a gift of Chocolate Cake at the Winter Thanksgiving. Here are the responses of Griffin, Carter and Marlin.

Griffin; Is it okay to give me this? Come again. I didn't do it this year. I'll prepare for next year...

Carter: Oh, it's Winter Thanks-Fest. And I didn't even give you anything. Sorry...

Marlin: ... It's for me? I'm sorry I didn't get you anything this year...

As you can see, all these bachelors are slightly embarrassed by a gift from me when they failed to give me Cookies at the Spring Thanksgiving. If I do not marry before the next Spring Thanksgiving, I will be visited by each and every one of them bearing the gift of Cookies...

The Romantic Festivals of Winter

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In Harvest Moon Cute as well as the original Harvest Moon DS, two of the Romantic festivals in the game occur during the Winter season. First, there is the Winter Thanksgiving or Winter Thanks-Fest, occurring on 14 Winter. This is the day when girls give Chocolate Cake to the boys they like. It is a 'return gift' ideally for the gift of Cookies given by the boys to the girls at the Spring Thanksgiving Festival on 14 Spring.

In your first year in Cute, you cannot have any bachelor at a high enough level to give you Cookies on 14 Spring. Your first opportunity to celebrate the Thanksgiving Festivals will be on 14 Winter. Bake Chocolate Cake and give it to every bachelor to raise AP by 1000 points for each.

In my own game, I could have proposed marriage and been accepted by any of the ordinary bachelors of Forget-Me-Not Valley since the delivery of the Big Bed on 26 Fall, but I wish to experience all Romantic Festivals with each bachelor as well as completing all four heart events for the Mineral Town bachelors.

Furthermore, the bachelor I intend to marry ultimately is Skye, but not until I have experienced ALL heart events for ALL bachelors as well as Leia's 4th Heart Event in Spring. She is at red heart level now as well.

The Spring and Winter Thanksgiving Festivals in Japan (and Harvest Moon) are the Japanese equivalent of the Western St. Valentine's Day celebration. In Japan, it is divided into two separate celebrations, one for women and one for men.

In any case, here are the responses of two of the Forget-Me-Not Valley bachelors to the gift of a piece of Chocolate Cake on 14 Winter.

Rock: I thought you'd give it to me, Freya. Thanks. Look forward to the spring!
Gustafa: Oh? The Winter Thanks-Fest? Thank you. but I haven't given anything to you this Spring, Freya. I'll remember next year.