Animal Crossing New Horizons: When Is Turkey Day?

Animal Crossing New Horizons Turkey Day Franklin and Character in the plaza outside resident services.


Animal Crossing New Horizons Turkey Day Franklin and Character in the plaza outside resident services.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is full of special events that run throughout the year. Each event will bring its own special rewards for you to collect and tasks for you to complete. One such event occurs near the end of November and involves a turkey who is supposedly a great chef. We're here to show you everything you need to know about Turkey Day.

Read More: Animal Crossing New Horizons: All Villager Birthdays

When Is Turkey Day?

Turkey Day will fall on the 25th of November. The event will start in the morning and run up until midnight on the same day. Also, the event will run regardless of the weather conditions on your island. Before starting Turkey Day, we strongly recommend that you grow some pumpkins beforehand. You can buy pumpkin starts from Leif when he visits or if you have his stall on Harv's Island.

What Is Turkey Day?

Turkey Day is an in-game event that is similar to the Thanksgiving Holiday in the US. Your plaza will be transformed into a feasting area and the event is hosted by a talented chef, Frankin the turkey. You will be celebrating the harvest by preparing a feast and you are Franklin's assistant for the day.

What You Need To Do on Turkey Day

On Turkey Day, the first thing you need to do is talk to Franklin. The turkey will be set up in the plaza outside resident services. Franklin will not directly ask for your help but it is heavily implied that you need to be the one to collect the ingredients for them. There are several ways that you can collect ingredients:

  • Digging for them
  • Fishing for them
  • Diving for them
  • Growing them
  • Scavenging for them (looking around trees and your island)

You can ask your villagers to help you if you know that you don't have a specific ingredient that Franklin wants, such as a yellow pumpkin. Your villagers should help you by giving the ingredients to you but you will typically have to do a task for them first. The villagers in the plaza will not help you - they are too busy admiring the food.

Animal Crossing New Horizons Turkey Day Franklin the turkey and Character cooking in the plaza
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Once you have collected the ingredients that Franklin needs, take them back to them at the Plaza. Interact with Franklin then hand over the ingredients who will then proceed to turn them into a delicious dish. Once they have done this, the dish will be served on the tables in the Plaza and Franklin will give you an item as a reward.

Turkey Day Items 2021

We have put together a list of all of the items that we are assuming will be a part of Turkey Day 2021. This list is based on the previous Turkey Day event but we will update it as soon as we know more.

  • Turkey Day Rug
  • Turkey Day Wallpaper
  • Turkey Day Flooring
  • Cornucopia (decorative house item)
  • Turkey Day Casserole
  • Turkey Day Chair
  • Turkey Day Decorations
  • Turkey Day Garden Stand
  • Turkey Day Hearth
  • Turkey Day Table
  • Turkey Day Setting
  • Turkey Day Wheat (decorative house item)

You can also buy some items from Nook's Cranny in the few days after the initial Turkey Day event or you can buy the recipes for all items from the cabinet!

Turkey Day Secret Ingredients List

When you are collecting ingredients for Franklin, you can collect the ones that he has asked for or you can collect the ones he has asked for and a secret ingredient. Each recipe has a secret ingredient and we're going to show you which ones they are. This list is based on the Turkey Day event for 2020, we will update this list if there are any changes for the upcoming event.

Clam Chowder: Scallop

Pumpkin Pie: 2 pumpkins that are different colours to the ones you originally gave him.

Gratin: A Dungeness Crab

Fish Meunière: Barred Knifejaw

Turkey day is just one of the many events that you can choose to participate in while playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Alongside events, there are multiple things for you to get your head around while playing. Luckily, we have plenty of guides that can help you with day-to-day island life. We have one on how to grow a money tree and another on how to use storage sheds.

Updated November 18th, 2021 by Marie Pritchard. Contributions from Nick Farrell.

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