Skyrim

About this mod

Saturalia is Tamriel's most important winter holiday, and all of Skyrim has been decorated with this large mod. Carolers, fully-voiced quests, and a huge amount of new content awaits.

Requirements
Permissions and credits
Changelogs
Saturalia - Christmas in Skyrim
Saturalia is traditionally celebrated on the 25th of Evening Star. Originally a holiday for a long forgotten god of debauchery, it has become a time of gift-giving, parties, and parading. Visitors are encouraged to participate.

You can read about Saturalia here: http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Calendar#Saturalia

Scholars at the College of Winterhold, who traditionally adorn the college with the help of illusion magic, have discovered how to craft miniature welkynd stones in a variety of glowing colors, and all of Skyrim's hold capitals have been decorated with these gleaming, crystalline lights. Some also choose to decorate with wreaths of evergreens to remember that life continues even on these dark winter nights, and others have even taken to trimming what they call Saturalia trees.

Carolers spread the cheer of the season throughout the cities, filling the cold air with their songs. Friends are more generous with gifts, leaving wrapped boxes for their acquaintances to discover and sometimes greeting people directly with presents. Children leave their shoes outside their homes in hope that Father Saturalia will fill them with nuts and candy. Cooks bake traditional treats of the season to share with friends and family.

There are alternate versions with less content, if that is what you prefer.

Features
Decorations
Each hold capital is decorated with a distinctive style to celebrate the season. Whether it's Markarth, with its silver and jewel-toned orbs, Riften, with its masses of golden lights, or Whiterun, with its many colors and candles, each city has its own unique character. More than 150 interiors, and several other towns and settlements, have also been decorated.

Carolers
Groups of carolers can be found in cities, spreading the season's cheer with their song. All songs are lore-friendly!

Quests
Spread the holiday spirit by helping a child believe in Father Saturalia or giving comfort to separated lovers with two fully-voiced new quests. Perhaps you can also learn a new trick!

If you're having any issues with quests, it can be helpful to save your game and then load that save.

Gifts
Saturalia makes the citizens of Skyrim feel more generous than usual, so don't be surprised if a friend stops you in the street to offer you a present! You can also find wrapped boxes of gifts in many places, but not all of these are for you to take -- many presents belong to other people. Some special items can only be obtained through gifts.

Father Saturalia's Workshop
Father Saturalia is a mysterious mer whose enchanted workshop can only be found by mortals during the holiday season. While some may question the morality of how he treats his Falmer workers, there is no doubt that they manage to produce an impressive variety of gifts.

Decorated player homes
Each of the five homes available for purchase in vanilla Skyrim will be decorated with a small tree, some gifts, and a few wreaths.

These decorations will show up regardless of how you have (or haven't) improved your home(s).

Please note that, while the gift boxes inside player homes do not respawn, they cannot be considered safe storage if you eventually plan to use the "After Saturalia" file to remove decorations. Using that file to remove decorations will also remove the presents, and you will lose any items inside them.

Food and drink
Eggnog, mugs of cocoa, snowberry brandy, Saturalia sweetrolls, mince pies, steamed pudding, Jarl Grey tea, Saturalia hunter's stew and snowberry pie are some of the warm, filling food and drink served during the festival. Inns have cookie tins full of treats free for the taking. Some foods and drinks are considered regional specialties, and they are more common in some cities than in others.

Vendors
Outside the gates of Solitude, Whiterun and Windhelm, you can find vendors eager to sell you seasonal foods and festive apparel. Other merchants may also have a chance to sell these items.

Dawnguard Castles
Both Fort Dawnguard and Volkihar Keep have been decorated (new for the 2013 holiday season)! Use the optional file. This is not a standalone mod--one of the original main files is also required (your choice).

A Note on Lore Friendliness
While this mod's name mentions Christmas, that word is never used within the game. The festival is Saturalia, a holiday long celebrated by the people of High Rock that has now caught on in Skyrim. This mod's name was selected so that it would be easy for people to search for it, and because Christmas has obviously influenced the whole mod.

This mod will not be to everybody's taste, but it was our goal to make a mod about warmth and cheer in a time of cold and darkness, and the joy and generosity of the season that is universal, even in the world of the Elder Scrolls.


Change list
1.1.2
More mod cleaning to fix a problem with CTDs
Added alternate versions (without decorated player homes, and with only external decorations)

1.1.1
Fixed some carol lyrics being sung out of order
Filled a gap in terrain under a vendor stall

1.1
Fixed face textures
Uncompressed bsa


Dependencies
All you need is Skyrim!

However, the Christmas In Dawnguard file (obviously) requires Dawnguard.

Some people have reported problems with textures, or even that they see nothing after installing the mod. If you're having troubles, please make sure your Skyrim has been updated to 1.8!


Installation Instructions
If you're doing this manually, drop both ChristmasInSkyrim.esp and ChristmasInSkyrim.bsa into Skyrim's Data folder and make sure the .esp is activated.

There is one extra step you MUST complete for quests and carolers to work correctly. After activating the mod, load your character, and save it again. Then load this new save.


Known Conflicts
This mod makes a huge number of changes, but in the vast majority of cases, there will not be harmful conflicts. If you run into issues, try changing the load order. We recommend loading this mod last.

If you're experiencing conflicts, please try the "Exterior Decorations Only" file if you'd still like to get some decorations but prefer not to have all the other changes.

This mod is known to be incompatible with:
Open Cities Skyrim
Unique Taverns

Lush Trees and Grass works fine as long as you use the original trees option, otherwise you will get floating ornaments. Other mods that alter trees may also cause similar issues.

If you get broken pixelated textures inside Father Saturalia's workshop, please use the optional fix file.

Removing Decorations
Saturalia is over, and you want to clean up the cities, but you'd like to keep all of your goodies and tasty treats? Use the "After Saturalia" file. This version of ChristmasInSkyrim.esp will overwrite the original mod and remove decorations and clutter (and restore any items removed by the original mod). If you want to bring the decorations back again, you can simply overwrite this file once more with the original .esp file.

Credits
This mod was created by Musicman247 and Deandra aka Merilia. Quests were written by Eltee. Major thanks to Musicman's wife and Deandra's daughter for voice acting, and to Leilah for playtesting. Thank you to CookieVortex for testing my fix for people who were getting broken workshop textures. All work in this mod is our own, and based only on vanilla Skyrim. You may not use any resources included in this mod without permission from the mod authors.

Also, thank you to Deandra's boyfriend and Musicman's wife for staying with us even when we put a lot of sleepless nights into this project!

Translations
French: http://www.confrerie-des-traducteurs.fr/skyrim/mods/guildes_et_quetes/saturalia.php

Video
Thank you misalen, hodilton, Salidira and Musicscene for creating these videos, and to Gopher for featuring us on the Skyrim Mod Sanctuary!