While the headlining feature in The Sims 4's Seasons expansion is probably the weather and the seasons themselves, it also included another element that it's tough to imagine living without at this point: a customizable calendar with holidays! While the calendar was eventually added to the base game when the Cottage Living expansion was released, the holidays are still gated behind the Seasons DLC.
By default, Seasons populates your calendar with four annual holidays that are analogous to ones we celebrate in the real world: Love Day, Harvestfest, Winterfest, and New Year's Eve. But you're hardly stuck with just those holidays, as you can make your own new ones from scratch--and you can even edit the default ones or get rid of them entirely if you want.
The holiday system in The Sims 4 isn't that complicated, as there are just five total factors that you can mess with: the holiday's name, its traditions, its theme for decorations, its calendar icon, and whether your sims get the day off work. You can pick any combination of traditions--up to five for each holiday--and there's no reason whatsoever that your holiday has to make any sense. Now, let's get into the details.
Everything we're going to talk about here happens in The Sims 4's calendar, which you can find by clicking the calendar button on the bottom left of your screen, just next to your sim family's row of portraits.
The Sims 4 has its own versions of every holiday.
To edit an existing holiday, you'll need to find it in the calendar, and then click on that day. A summary of the holiday will appear to the left of the calendar, and clicking on the pencil icon will bring you to the Edit Holiday screen. Once there, you can change its icon by clicking the thumbnail in the top-left corner of the menu, change the theme and whether you get the day off work in the top-right corner, and the rest of this menu is devoted to choosing traditions. So if you're a person who doesn't celebrate Christmas and would prefer that Winterfest have a different sort of bent, you could swap out the Festive Spirit tradition, which includes "holiday tree" activities, for the Lighting a Menorah or Lighting a Kinara traditions. Or you could make it something completely different, or just delete it.
The process for making an entirely new holiday isn't very different from editing one, aside from the fact that you're starting from scratch rather than modifying an existing format. To start, you'll need to open the calendar and select a day that doesn't currently have a holiday (you can only have one holiday for each day). Then, on the left side of the menu, you'll see your sim family's work schedule for the day if they have one, along with the option for adding a holiday right below it--click the plus sign button there to start making your new holiday.
If you're the sort of person who wants to add a bunch of new holidays to the calendar, there are some things you should keep in mind as you do so. You may want to avoid going overboard with holidays that give your sims a day off work and school. As nice as it would be for your sim to draw a paycheck without ever actually working because every day is a bank holiday, they'll never have any chance at a promotion or raise that way, and your teen sims will be C students who don't know how to do anything because they never went to school.
In addition to the four set holidays, Seasons includes a series of smaller holidays with only one tradition each, which pop up at random, like Talk Like a Pirate Day and Prank Day. These holidays are not placed on the calendar until the game chooses to have them, at which point The Sims 4 will warn you they're coming up soon. You can't edit these types of holidays, and you can't make new ones that work like this.
By default, a year in The Sims 4 is 28 days, with each of the four weeks representing a season. But in the game options, in the Environment section, you can make the seasons last 14 or 28 days instead, which proportionally increases the length of a year--with 28-day seasons, a year would last for 112 days.
In addition to making holidays for each day, you can also set up and schedule social events on the calendar up to a year in advance (regardless of how long the year is), so you can schedule a trip to the bar for your sim's birthday, or whatever else you want. Sadly, there's no way to set up recurring events this way, like a weekly bowling night. You just have to make each event individually.
Below you can peruse all of the holiday traditions you can choose while making your own holiday. Because the way the holiday menu is designed only lets you see a handful of traditions at a time, it can be easy to think there aren't that many of them--but there are actually four dozen traditions available, many of which are derived from real holidays (and fake ones like Festivus from Seinfeld). Take a look below.
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By default, Seasons populates your calendar with four annual holidays that are analogous to ones we celebrate in the real world: Love Day, Harvestfest, Winterfest, and New Year's Eve. But you're hardly stuck with just those holidays, as you can make your own new ones from scratch--and you can even edit the default ones or get rid of them entirely if you want.
The holiday system in The Sims 4 isn't that complicated, as there are just five total factors that you can mess with: the holiday's name, its traditions, its theme for decorations, its calendar icon, and whether your sims get the day off work. You can pick any combination of traditions--up to five for each holiday--and there's no reason whatsoever that your holiday has to make any sense. Now, let's get into the details.
Everything we're going to talk about here happens in The Sims 4's calendar, which you can find by clicking the calendar button on the bottom left of your screen, just next to your sim family's row of portraits.
The Sims 4 has its own versions of every holiday.
Editing holidays in The Sims 4
To edit an existing holiday, you'll need to find it in the calendar, and then click on that day. A summary of the holiday will appear to the left of the calendar, and clicking on the pencil icon will bring you to the Edit Holiday screen. Once there, you can change its icon by clicking the thumbnail in the top-left corner of the menu, change the theme and whether you get the day off work in the top-right corner, and the rest of this menu is devoted to choosing traditions. So if you're a person who doesn't celebrate Christmas and would prefer that Winterfest have a different sort of bent, you could swap out the Festive Spirit tradition, which includes "holiday tree" activities, for the Lighting a Menorah or Lighting a Kinara traditions. Or you could make it something completely different, or just delete it.
Making new holidays in The Sims 4
The process for making an entirely new holiday isn't very different from editing one, aside from the fact that you're starting from scratch rather than modifying an existing format. To start, you'll need to open the calendar and select a day that doesn't currently have a holiday (you can only have one holiday for each day). Then, on the left side of the menu, you'll see your sim family's work schedule for the day if they have one, along with the option for adding a holiday right below it--click the plus sign button there to start making your new holiday.
If you're the sort of person who wants to add a bunch of new holidays to the calendar, there are some things you should keep in mind as you do so. You may want to avoid going overboard with holidays that give your sims a day off work and school. As nice as it would be for your sim to draw a paycheck without ever actually working because every day is a bank holiday, they'll never have any chance at a promotion or raise that way, and your teen sims will be C students who don't know how to do anything because they never went to school.
Those other holidays
In addition to the four set holidays, Seasons includes a series of smaller holidays with only one tradition each, which pop up at random, like Talk Like a Pirate Day and Prank Day. These holidays are not placed on the calendar until the game chooses to have them, at which point The Sims 4 will warn you they're coming up soon. You can't edit these types of holidays, and you can't make new ones that work like this.
Other things you can do with the calendar
By default, a year in The Sims 4 is 28 days, with each of the four weeks representing a season. But in the game options, in the Environment section, you can make the seasons last 14 or 28 days instead, which proportionally increases the length of a year--with 28-day seasons, a year would last for 112 days.
In addition to making holidays for each day, you can also set up and schedule social events on the calendar up to a year in advance (regardless of how long the year is), so you can schedule a trip to the bar for your sim's birthday, or whatever else you want. Sadly, there's no way to set up recurring events this way, like a weekly bowling night. You just have to make each event individually.
Sims 4 holiday traditions
Below you can peruse all of the holiday traditions you can choose while making your own holiday. Because the way the holiday menu is designed only lets you see a handful of traditions at a time, it can be easy to think there aren't that many of them--but there are actually four dozen traditions available, many of which are derived from real holidays (and fake ones like Festivus from Seinfeld). Take a look below.
- Air Grievances: Select other sims and use mean social interactions.
- Appreciate an Object: Click on objects and use the "Appreciate" interaction.
- Art & Music Spirit: Create art using skills like painting, dancing, playing instruments, or singing.
- Attend Holiday Ceremony: Attend a holiday ceremony via phone.
- Baking: Bake using a stove.
- Bar-B-Que: Cook using a grill.
- Cleaning: Clean up by picking up trash, washing dishes, and mopping puddles.
- Countdown to Midnight: Watch the Countdown to Midnight on a TV after 11:00 PM.
- Decorate: Place holiday decorations from Build/Buy mode or use the Attic Stack Decoration Box.
- Drinking: Drink from a Bar, Drink Stand, or Fridge.
- Egg Hunt: Search objects in the world using the "Hunt for Egg" interaction.
- Exercise: Perform workout activities.
- Fasting: Don't eat for six hours.
- Festive Spirit: Use festive socials like "Light the Holiday Tree," "Ask if Good or Bad," or "Belly Laugh."
- Fighting: Fight other sims.
- Fire: Interact with fire by lighting a bonfire, campfire, fireplace, or leaf pile.
- Fireworks: Buy and light fireworks.
- Flower Bunny: Perform friendly interactions with the Flower Bunny, who will visit your home.
- Give Flowers: Gift another sim any flower.
- Give Gifts: Gift another sim any object from your inventory.
- Games: Play video games, board games, or chess.
- Gardening: Use gardening interactions.
- Go on a Date: Take another sim on a date.
- Go on a Vacation or Travel: Visit a commercial venue or use the "Take a Vacation" interaction on their phone.
- Grand Meal: Cook a Grand Meal and then call other sims to eat it.
- Holiday Gnomes: Interact with the creepy gnomes by appeasing them with gifts.
- Invite Guests: Invite at least two sims to their lot and socialize with them.
- Light Kinara: Light a Kinara.
- Light Menorah: Light a Menorah.
- Make Resolution: Choose a resolution and complete it within seven days.
- Mischief Spirit: Perform mischievous social interactions.
- Open Presents: Open presents from a gift pile.
- Party Spirit: Dance, drink, sing, flirt, joke, or play instruments.
- Romantic Spirit: Use romantic interactions.
- Polar Bear Plunge: Swim outside while it's cold.
- Remembrance: Interact with an urn or gravestone, or talk to a ghost.
- Spooky Spirit: Interact with occult sims, carve pumpkins, or play spooky music on a pipe organ.
- Sports TV: Watch sports on TV.
- Streaking: Go streaking.
- Tell Stories: Tell stories around a campfire or read books to toddlers.
- Thankful Spirit: Use the "Be Thankful" interaction with another sim.
- Trick or Treat: Use the "Trick or Treat" interaction with visiting children.
- Watch Romantic TV: Watch the romance channel on a TV.
- Water Fun: Interact with a pool, kiddie pool, sprinkler, or water balloon bucket.
- Wear Costumes: Wear one of several mascot costumes.
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