2025 Advent Event - Help, Questions & Answers

[Raire]

Please post here if you have questions about the event! Please see the FAQ below for common questions, and a section describing the December 18th re-release.

You can answer each other's questions if you know the answer, but if you're not sure then please leave it for someone else

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FAQ

How does the advent calendar work?

During the Advent Calendar there is a new gift available on our event page every day. All of the gifts are free and nothing else needs to be done to participate except log in each day and adopt that day's gift! This runs from Dec 1st to Dec 25th.

I missed a day of the advent calendar, is there a way I can still get it?

No, advent calendar gifts are not made available again so if you missed a gift you will need to trade with other users for it. The only exception is the Dec 25th gift which will be available through the end of the month.

When is the next gift available?

The advent calendar gift changes every day at rollover. Rollover refers to midnight site time. What time that is for you will depend on your time zone. You can see the current site time here. Rollover happens when the site time goes from 23:59:59 to 00:00:00.

How do Hanukkah releases work?

Pets and items released for Hanukkah are on a separate page from the advent calendar. There will be an event button for it on the front page of the site right under the Advent button once the first Hanukkah release is available. Typically there will be a daily candle to collect for each day of Hanukkah, and new pets and items are sometimes released throughout Hanukkah so the page should be checked each day for anything new. Except for the daily candle, Hanukkah releases usually stay up throughout the remainder of the month.

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Have you heard about December 18th on CS?

You might have heard people talking about "December 18th" and "re-releases". If you haven't participated in our Advent Calendar before then this may be new to you. It's just about time for the Dec 18th release, so please read this information so that you understand what it all means!

Each year on December 18th, we have an extra special gift in the advent calendar. The Dec 18th gift boxes are full of hundreds of different pets which have been released before over the past 13 years - many of these are rare and valuable. You will have the chance to adopt a few, but like all previous gifts, the pets you receive are randomly chosen.

The December 18th giveaway's purpose is to bring all sorts of old and rare pets back into the active trading population so that they're a little less difficult to get in trades. That said, we don't want to dramatically lower their value, so we can't give everyone a Sunback or a Zebra otherwise those ultra rare pets would become worthless Very Commons overnight. If you are disappointed by what you receive on the 18th please don't feel sad, because even if you were a bit unlucky on the day, the re-release benefits everyone long-term by making trading for older rares slightly easier for everyone again.

Important Information Concerning Dec 18th Pets:

• You may not recognize the pets you receive, but there is a good chance that they will be valuable pets with a high trading value! They are not normal Advent pets and they will be worth much more than any other pets in the Advent Calendar.
  
  
  
• We recommend that you don't trade your pets away until you are sure you understand how much they are worth. You don't want to get ripped off by someone who offers you low-value pets for your new rares. There are older members who intentionally seek out new members and COPPA members on Dec 18th so they can try to rip them off with unfair trade offers. Please take your time and don't rush to accept any offers until you're sure that it feels like a good deal for you.
  
  
  
• You can ask for help identifying or valuing your Dec 18th pets in a special topic which will be created on Dec 18th.
  Here is the link to last years topic.
  
  
  
• If you're a COPPA player and can't post in the forum to ask about your pets, we recommend that you wait until your pets are fully grown before you trade them so that you can work out which outcomes you have and what their rarity is. You can also send a help ticket to get some help from General Helpers/Staff.

Why can't I adopt from the boxes on December 18th?

Because the 18th gives you the chance to get older pets, many people are tempted to cheat. To help keep the CS economy in order, Nick implemented a system that will stop new members from adopting from the boxes.

The cheating isn't merely a theoretical possibility, it's a certainty. Look at the graph of number of people creating accounts from last Dec 18th:

[graph no longer works but showed a huge spike of people making accounts]

Chicken Smoothie suddenly becomes "extremely popular" at midnight, release time.

Because of the rarity of the pets being released today, cheating threatens to ruin the rarity of all the valuable pets in the game. This protection is in place to stop the Chicken Smoothie economy being destroyed. Having the game economy ruined by cheaters is no fun for anybody.

Remember... It is against the rules to create multiple accounts!

No cheating!

Creating extra accounts to get more Dec 18th pets is super obvious and easy to detect, so unless you want to get banned, it's better to play fair.
Please note:
It is considered cheating if you get family or friends to sign up so they can send you their Dec 18th pets. It's considered cheating if your friend doesn't play anymore but uses their old account to adopt pets for you. Don't make any extra accounts for yourself, and make sure that your trades are fair if you are trading with family and friends. Don't trade with inactive players. If an account is being used just so that person can adopt things for you, then that is cheating.

Trade fair, play fair, and stick to the rules.

Are store pets released during December 18th?

No, Store Pets are not included in December 18th. This is because the site admins feel it would be unfair to those who bought store pets with real money for them to later be re-released for free. Store pets were unintentional re-released once, but have never been in the box since that time. Please note that store pets are also not considered part of a complete collection on CS.

What does "Unreleased/UR" mean?

On the 18th of December 2008, 4 pets were released during the advent calendar. These were pets classed as "Unreleased" because they were pets made for Chicken Smoothie that were never released at any other time but on December 18th.
It has become a tradition and new 'unreleased' pets have also been released for every December 18th since!
There is a chance that one of the pets you will adopt is one of these. It is possible to adopt unreleased pets from any of the previous years as well as the current year though the December 18th re-release.

How do I get an "Unreleased/UR" pet and how rare are they?

The only time you can adopt an "Unreleased/UR" pet is on the 18th of December. There is a random chance that you might get one of these pets, out of several other hundred pets being released from the same box, and you are only allowed to adopt from each box once. This makes the "Unreleased/UR" pets Extremely Rare and OMG So Rare. They are highly sought after, and are very popular, making them quite difficult to trade for.

What do these "Unreleased/UR" pets look like?

You can find the full list in our Guide to Unreleased Pets and Zebras.
Here are some examples from previous years:

UR Purple Horse (2009) ----- UR Bee (2013) ----- UR Fennec Fox (2017)


UR Galaxy Cat (2018) ----- UR S'more (2020) ----- UR Pastel Dog (2022)

Do you have more questions?

Just ask! =)

[RudolphRat]

Is the holiday name generator going to come back? I don't recall if it only comes later in the month, but it's one of my favorite parts of CS Advent so I hope so ^^

[Super-Llamas! Hi-Ya!]

Is the holiday name generator going to come back? I don't recall if it only comes later in the month, but it's one of my favorite parts of CS Advent so I hope so ^^

I came here to ask the exact same thing! Missing the "generate a seasonal name" option!

[Simon]

Is the holiday name generator going to come back? I don't recall if it only comes later in the month, but it's one of my favorite parts of CS Advent so I hope so ^^

I came here to ask the exact same thing! Missing the "generate a seasonal name" option!

The seasonal name generator is working now!

[GreatWhiteDragon_1]

Do be mindful of the RR pets... as others have let me know (CS staff), RR pets are the same value as the TD of that pet.

[LissaJo]

Do be mindful of the RR pets... as others have let me know (CS staff), RR pets are the same value as the TD of that pet.

Staff do not set the value, players do.. and there are players who DO pay quite a bit more for TD pets. Yes, they are the same rarity but that does not necessarily mean that TDs arent worth more to some players

[wrenn.]

I have a question about who can participate in December 18th. It has been many years since I've been on CS and I can't remember all the rules. How old does your account have to be for you to participate?
Thanks!

[Laced]

I have a question about who can participate in December 18th. It has been many years since I've been on CS and I can't remember all the rules. How old does your account have to be for you to participate?
Thanks!

To participate in December 18th, all you have to do is log in that day and claim the pets. There is no special things you have to do to be able to participate. The pets you get will be random. Just being on the site longer doesn’t equal higher value pets

[wrenn.]

I have a question about who can participate in December 18th. It has been many years since I've been on CS and I can't remember all the rules. How old does your account have to be for you to participate?
Thanks!

To participate in December 18th, all you have to do is log in that day and claim the pets. There is no special things you have to do to be able to participate. The pets you get will be random. Just being on the site longer doesn’t equal higher value pets

Right, I understand that but I thought there was a requirement that you had to have been a member of the site for x amount of time. Like, you couldn't join that day and collect December 18th pets. It was to prevent cheating from what I remember. Maybe it has changed since I was last here

[Simon]

Sorry we don't share the cut off publicly, otherwise people would just plan around it to try and cheat.