The gift boxes drop from the HOS (thought game is stingy with them).  You can also get them by making trades with the children.

Noni,

It's easy to miss that you can trade with the children for them.  When you click on the children, they display that you can trade for the Holiday Wand.  Just to the right of the Wand is arrows.  If you click the down one you will see the present you can trade for.

JB1 -- Thanks for the info on selling to kids for wands.  What I meant to say was I have no more wands to gift until I visit the private rooms.  I don't really do the quests because I don't have time, so I'd rather send the wands I have to those who can make good use of them.  Then I get the challange for completing five quest and every one of them involved collecting globes and trees/snowmen/stockings!!  Yikes!  So I had to hit up the children for wands.  Luckily I had plenty of tree trimming items to cover it and was able to complete it.  You know what's funny? On my main game (MoTom70) I had 75 wands and only one quest involved collecting globes and the rest was tree trimmings.  With this game is feast and famine.  Cheers!  MoTom

So glad I came here and saw your post. I forgot all about the kids trading for gift boxes. My low level game is at level 23 and no Mrs. Claus yet. 

I just started keeping track of how many gift boxes drop from the HOSs. I up to over 80 HOS and ONLY ONE GIFT BOX. Too bad we can't put on the wish list.

There's hope for Mrs. Claus if I have enough items to trade. And with over 20 days left in the WE.

I've been gifting those Santa bags mostly to low level (less than 30) players from all 4 games - 3 on PC and 1 ipad. I know how tough it is to accumulate items with very few HOSs

Good luck to everyone this WE !!

datsalotta aka *piesy aka datsdat

Thank you. I haven't seen any in a long time!

Oh geez, that was so easy. Thank you so much!!

You're welcome, happy to help!

Thank you so much for the room instructions.  I have been working way too hard not knowing about them (ha ha). 

Do you know if there is something we can do with the pets in each room or do they just sit there looking cute?  What is the purpose of the item to the right of the room's pet--the item that sometimes looks like a book and shows the various creatures and other collections (Christmas trees, fairies, cookies, etc.) gathered floating through the main part of the game?  

Thank you for all your gifts.  You are right. It is a lot harder at a low level with limited rooms to play.  Especially when you need too collect items for cc. I am low on regular inventory and i need christmas items so it does make it a challenge for returning gifts.  

Hey Terry,

Once you have crafted your pets, you feed them with the food you collect in the HOS. The pets are so grateful for you feeding them they give you all sorts of gifts.  If you have items waiting to be done for your challenges, your pets can supply you with the items you need, depending on the chest they give you.

The book is what the player has collected in their collections during the event.  You need wands to get these items floating across the screen and they usually are the challenges for example you may need to collect 3 Dwarfs, 3 Pixies and 3 pigs.  Collecting these also give you different eggs along with cards and various other goodies that will help you.  Because you are so new to the game, I suggest you send Debbie a PM and ask her about collecting eggs for the consortium, they need the eggs from the daily challenge such as sled dogs, winter cats, rooster etc...