Halloween in Animal Crossing: New Horizons starts a little bit early — when the clock strikes 5:00 p.m., the event will begin and you’ll notice the sky start to darken! Prior to Halloween night, you’ll have to prepare by growing pumpkins and purchasing candy from the shop. Then, when the event actually begins, you can give candy to villagers you meet outside to obtain exclusive furniture!
Grow Pumpkins
You won’t be able to craft or customize Halloween furniture without pumpkins, so it’s in your best interest to create a pumpkin patch several days before Halloween comes around. You can purchase pumpkin starts from Nook’s Cranny throughout the month of October or buy them from Leif at any time of year. There are four colors of pumpkin – yellow, orange, green, and white – and the type of pumpkin you grow will affect the color of the furniture you craft.
Pumpkin starts don’t need to be watered, but watering them will increase the number of pumpkins the fully-grown crop eventually yields. Watering a pumpkin start for three days in a row will cause each crop to yield three whole pumpkins! Once you’ve obtained a decent number of pumpkins, you’ll be ready to start crafting. But in order to start crafting, you’ll need some recipes.
Shoot Balloons & Buy Candy
To obtain Halloween furniture, you’ll need to look around your island to farm for new recipes. These can be found from balloons, message bottles, or from villagers crafting recipes in their house. Balloons are likely the fastest way of farming, and a new one spawns above your island every few minutes when the last digit of the clock reads 4 or 9. It’ll take a few minutes for the balloon to float above land, but when it does, you can shoot it down with a slingshot.
If you’re okay with waiting for Halloween to come, then you can purchase a bunch of candy from Nook’s Cranny and give it to your villagers on Halloween. In return, they’ll either give you a non-craftable item from the Spooky set or a lollipop — and you can then give these lollipops to Jack on Halloween night in exchange for exclusive items including the Spooky carriage (and its recipe) and the Spooky wand recipe. You can also dress up in a scary costume (which you can purchase from the Able Sisters’ shop during the month of October) and enter your villagers’ houses. Once inside, they’ll give you a piece of candy!
Alternatively, you can just purchase Spooky furniture directly from Nook’s Cranny. That being said, you’ll only be purchasing the furniture and not its recipe — and without the recipe, you won’t be able to craft as many pieces of that furniture as you want.
Furniture List
There are a grand total of seventeen Halloween recipes. These include the Spooky arch, the Spooky candy set, the Spooky chair, the Spooky lantern, the Spooky lantern set, the Spooky scarecrow, the Spooky standing lamp, the Spooky table, the Spooky tower, the Spooky treats basket, the Spooky tree, and the Spooky trick lamp. Furthermore, you can obtain several exclusive (and non-craftable) furniture pieces by giving your villagers candy on Halloween night.
So, to review: buy candy and grow pumpkins prior to Halloween, and then on Halloween night dress up in a costume and hand out candy. Give candy and lollipops to Jack and you’ll obtain a whole bunch of spooky furniture to use on your island whenever you want! Keep in mind that you can’t really time travel to Halloween unless the real-world month is October, by the way. If you have any questions, please direct them to our Discord community!
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