The holiday season in Grow a Garden has officially arrived, and with it comes a wave of exciting rewards, festive mutations, and some notorious challenges—looking at you, Krampus. While many players are frustrated by the difficulty of obtaining this character, there’s good news: with the right approach, you can farm the Christmas event efficiently, even without constantly playing. After spending several hours testing the latest AFK techniques, I’ve put together a detailed guide to help you maximize your rewards while minimizing effort.

Setting Up Your Garden for Maximum Efficiency

Before you start AFK farming, you need to optimize your garden layout. The key is to focus on plants that grow back quickly so you can collect Christmas mutations repeatedly. Tomatoes are my personal favorite for this, as they regrow fast and provide consistent rewards. If your goal is pure efficiency, try to keep your plot minimal—only plant what’s necessary. Extra plants can accidentally steal mutations from your main crop, slowing down your progress.

For those without enough tomatoes, blueberries or other fast-growing crops will also work, though the reward rate will be slightly lower. The important part is to ensure your inventory can fill multiple times so that the AFK process continues smoothly.

Once your garden is ready, position yourself at the spawn point in the center of your garden plot and adjust your camera to get a clear view of your crops. From here, a simple TinyTask recording can automate your movements, harvesting, and turning in presents. This setup allows the game to run your collection loop without manual input, making it ideal for longer AFK sessions.

Automating Present Collection and Plant Sales

Collecting mutated plants and turning them into holiday presents is the heart of this event. After harvesting your crops, walk toward the present in the middle of the map and submit your inventory. Then, head over to Steven to sell excess plants that don’t yet have Christmas mutations. This step ensures your inventory remains ready for the next round of harvesting, which is essential for maximizing rewards during your AFK farming session.

Timing is crucial. I recommend letting your crops grow for two to four minutes between each loop. This ensures enough mutations accumulate so that your inventory is filled with valuable holiday items each cycle. Using event lanterns can make this process smoother, reducing errors caused by your character missing crops during the automated run.

Leveraging Pets for Faster Mutations

A less obvious, but highly effective strategy involves using specific pets to increase the mutation rate. The Polar Bear and Sushi Bear are particularly useful. The Polar Bear can turn a nearby crop into a chilled or frozen state every 90 seconds, while the Sushi Bear is faster, acting every 10–80 seconds with a higher chance of success. By placing these pets strategically near your plants, you can significantly increase the number of mutated crops collected in each AFK cycle.

The upcoming Pet Shard Hyper Hunger looks promising as well. Once available, it could potentially enhance AFK farming efficiency even further. Keep an eye out for guides on this pet, as it may become a game-changer for holiday events.

AFK Farming in the Shop

Beyond harvesting crops, you can also automate shopping to acquire rare items without constantly monitoring the game. Using TinyTask, simply record the purchase sequence in the shop: select the items you want, skip those you don’t, and scroll manually using the bar (avoid the scroll wheel to prevent errors). Once recorded, continuous playback allows your character to buy items automatically every time the shop restocks.

What’s great is that you can combine both systems—crop harvesting and shop automation—into a single loop. After turning in your presents, walk over to the shop and let your recording handle purchases. This dual automation lets you maximize both resources and items simultaneously, reducing repetitive gameplay significantly.

For those struggling to maintain enough seeds for AFK farming, a similar technique applies. You can set up a recording in the seed shop to continuously restock your inventory, ensuring you always have the plants necessary to keep your AFK cycles running efficiently.

Handling Unexpected Game Events

While this system works remarkably well, it’s not entirely foolproof. Certain weather events in Grow a Garden, such as earthquakes, can disrupt your AFK loops by moving your character unexpectedly. In these cases, it’s a matter of restarting your recording. Personally, I hope the developers introduce a way to disable disruptive events during AFK farming—it would make the process even smoother.

AFK farming during the Christmas event in Grow a Garden can save countless hours while still giving you access to all the festive rewards. By carefully setting up your garden, leveraging pets, automating both present collection and shop purchases, and ensuring you have enough seeds, you can make the most of your holiday gameplay.

For players looking to get a head start, resources like U4GM can help with items or in-game currencies, but following these strategies will allow most of the farming to be done naturally, maximizing efficiency without shortcuts. Remember, patience and planning are key—set up your loops correctly, and watch your garden fill up with presents and mutations while you take a break.

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