The Feast of Winter Veil (December 15th - January 2nd) is coming up and I’m gonna do something nice in WoW this Christmas…

Since I had collected more gold than I knew what to do with (12 000+) by following the principles in the Cash Creating Guide and Valkor’s Gold Making Guide, I thought I’d buy Christmas gifts to my entire server (more info on how I did it here).

I received a nice gift from a guild mate I hardly knew last year, and I really appreciated the gesture so I thought I’d do the same for someone else this year. Well, at least to players on the alliance side of my server… the horde don’t deserve anything! ;-)

So anyway, I decided to spend 2 000 gold, but it turned out to be more like 3 000 in the end. I have a few hundred gifts in my banks now. More than likely it won’t be enough for everyone, but a lot of people will get a nice gift wrapped package with something fun or useful.

If you want to give away something but don’t know what, here are some ideas that will fit most any budget:

• Bags! Who doesn’t need bags? It’s a great gift to lowbies who will appreciate a 16 slot bank to use on their character or on their bank. And it will only cost you 7-10 gold at the auction house on most servers. If you have the gold and really want to give away something special, an 18 or 20 slot bag will be treasured even by a level 70.

• Potions! What do people want for Christmas? Something fun, not necessarily something useful. There are a number of funny potions you can give away. Here are some of them: Swiftness potion, Free Action Potion, Winterfall Firewater, Elixir of Giant Growth (especially the two last ones together in combination with a shamans heroism ability can make a person look HUGE!)

• Food! There are many special items made with cooking that you can give away. Some of these require hard-to-find recipes and ingredients, but if you know a good cook they may be able to make them. Delicious Chocolate Cake (new item that will have you shooting fireworks as you eat it), Savory Deviate Delight (classic, but still funny), Egg nog (chance to turn you into a reindeer! the recipe can be bought from goblins in major cities during the Feast of Winter Veil), Dragonbreath Chili (sometimes spews flames on mobs in melee combat), Stormchops (new item which sometimes zaps enemies and can do huge damage to beasts).

• Vanity items! Who doesn’t love to show off unusual and cool looking items and get whispered compliments? There are loads and I’m not familiar with them all, but here are some ideas: Blood Elf Bandit Mask, Farmer’s Broom, Farmer’s Shovel. Try to put enchant on the broom or shovel for added effect.

• Pets! There are numerous different companions, ranging from cute to horrid, common or rare. Here is a Small pet list. Some of these are made by engineers and can be traded to other players.

• Clothes! If you have a sense of fashion, and know someone who doesn’t, why not surprise them with some festive clothes? There are many tailor-made items to choose from, as well as some brand-new stuff available for the first time this Christmas: Green Winter Clothes, Red Winter Clothes. I’m not sure how to obtain those two yet, though… If you want to give away tailor-made clothes, you need only concern yourself with the white quality items from the list here. Find a tailor to craft these for you or look on the auction house. A tailor can link these to you so you can ctrl + click on them to see them in the dressing room.

• Boosts! If you know a lowbie who likes good gear, you can give away an hour of free boosting to them at a dungeon of their choice! Alternatively, if you don’t wanna do the boosting yourself, pay someone else (someone trusted) to boost your friend.

• Toys! One thing I will give away a ton of are Crashin’ Thrashin’ Robots! (I’ve had an engineer make me 50 of these units!) These very cool robots can be used by anyone at any level, and they will fight each other until one is destroyed. The problem with these, however, is finding another person who has one. But if you give away some to your friends then you can have a big battle.

• Temporary Item Enhancements! Look through the list and see what would make sense.

• Ammo! If you know any hunters, I think crafted ammo is a nice gift. There are many varieties, but the best crafted ammo comes in the form of Adamantite Shell Machine and Adamantite Arrow Maker. Just remember there are level requirements on ammo. Talk to an engineer and see what ammo they can craft.

Now, once you have your gifts you need to gift wrap them. You can find a list of wrapping paper here. Some of those are only available during the Feast of Winter Veil. Unfortunately, you can’t wrap stacked items or bags, which kind of ruins the surprise when you put them in the trade window, but you can split a stack into single units by shift + left clicking on it and wrap each item individually.

What if you don’t have gold to buy gifts with?

Well, as I said, the Cash Creating Guide and Valkor’s Gold Making Guide will take care of that problem. But I’m also going to give you a couple of my own gold tips:

First, understand that there are some quests during the Feast of Winter Veil which will require some food to complete. Specifically, everyone will need 5 x Gingerbread Cookie. The challenge is that you have to make these cookies with cooking (you only need skill level 1). The cookies require Holiday Spices and Small Egg to create. The spices you get from a vendor for cheap, but the eggs you have to grind. Fortunately, I know the best places to grind them FAST: Moonkin in Darkshore (for alliance or horde), or Feral Dragonhawk Hatchling (for horde or high level alliance). The latter mob is best and is easiest to find just south of Silvermoon City.

Then when the day comes, and you really gotta do this on the first or second day of the Feast of Winter Veil i.e. December 15th or 16th, you bake up the Gingerbread Cookies and sell them on the auction house or in trade from an alt for 50s-1g each. You see, many high level players can’t be bothered to go to a low level area, grind the damn eggs, purhcase the spices and the recipe, acquire the cooking skill and find or make a fire to cook them. They just want the cookies fast and 2.5-5 g is nothing for them.

If you grind 200 eggs which you can do pretty fast in the spots I mentioned, you can make 100-200 gold, which may be a lot depending on your level.

There are also some quests you can do which can give very valuable rewards. I suggest you read my entire Guide to the Feast of Winter Veil.

There you have it, my best ideas for giving and receiving during the Feast of Winter Veil. You can give away just about anything, be creative! If you have any other ideas I’d love to hear about them.

Martin