The Sims 4 Seasons is probably one of my favorite Expansion Packs. Along with the titular seasons and weather being introduced into the game, Seasons also includes holidays. You can enjoy holidays such as Love Day, Harvestfest, New Year’s Countdown, and Winterfest. It is during Winterfest that you can have an encounter with a special NPC called Father Winter. You can speak to him and ask him for a present – or fight him for it. However, there is an unusual issue in the game where the option to ask for a present isn’t always available. This is a shame as it is quite a special moment for the holiday, but it’s also a nuisance. One of the tasks required to complete during Winterfest is to ask Father Winter for a present, and if you don’t do this, it might affect your Sim’s final score and thoughts on the holiday.
If you run into this problem, there is a simple fix, which requires you jumping into the world map and doing some tinkering. This guide will walk you through what to do if you ever run into this problem in your game, which you are more than likely to do.
We’ve got more guides for The Sims 4, including these:
- The Sims 4: The Ultimate Guide to Building Stunning Lots
- The Sims 4: How to Avoid Death Guide
- The Sims 4: How to Get Abducted Guide
- The Sims 4: Hidden Locations Guide
- The Definitive Guide to the Best Sims 4 Mods
Who Is Father Winter in The Sims 4?
Father Winter is a unique NPC in The Sims 4, introduced in the Seasons Expansion Pack. By default, he appears as part of the Winterfest holiday. Since Winterfest is The Sims‘ take on Christmas, Father Winter is essentially Father Christmas. He even has the same white beard and jolly laugh, and he hands out presents. He’s not hard to miss among your Sims when he visits.
He shows up at your Sim’s household in the evening, around 7pm. He hangs around the property for several hours, normally departing at about 11pm. If your Sim has a fireplace on the lot, he’ll appear and later disappear next to there, otherwise he’ll suddenly appear. You don’t need a fireplace for Father Winter to show up.
You don’t need a fireplace for Father Winter to show up, but he’ll appear and disappear next to it if you do have one.
When Father Winter drops in, he’ll stock up any present pile on the lot to full. He may also help himself to a glass of water. He is fully interactable. Aside from the usual Sim-to-Sim interactions, he has some unique socials, such as Ask for Present and Fight Father Winter for Present. Your Sim must introduce themselves to him before these interactions become available, apart from Fight Father Winter for Present.
As part of the default Winterfest holiday, one of the five tasks is to Ask for Present from Father Winter. If you want a successful holiday, you need to do this. However, there is a bug that can hinder this.
Asking Father Winter for a present is one of Winterfest’s tasks.
Why Can’t I Ask Father Winter for a Present?
You should be able to Ask for Present from Father Winter. Initially, in a new game in The Sims 4, this social interaction should be available. However, as time goes on in your saved game, you may notice that this interaction is no longer available. This may puzzle you when it happens. Why can’t you ask him for a present anymore? There is a reason for this: he has probably moved into one of the lots in one of the worlds, which is stopping this interaction from being available. I’m not sure why this happens, but this is the cause. Thankfully, there is an easy fix, which I’ll share with you further down this guide.
Should I Bother Fixing the Issue?
You may feel that if you do encounter this issue, you’re not really that fussed. If you don’t care about getting a present directly from Father Winter, or aren’t worried about fulfilling all 5 Winterfest tasks, that’s fine if you’re okay to leave it. However, if you do like receiving presents from Father Winter, or you want to guarantee a perfect Winterfest holiday, then you’ll probably want to resolve it. Whatever you choose to do is up to you. However, if you do want it fixed, then read the next section for all the details.
If you want Father Winter to hand out gifts again, there’s an easy enough fix.
How Do I Fix the Issue?
This is the core part of this guide: resolving the issue of Father Winter no longer handing out presents. Fixing the problem is actually pretty easy. It’s a little bit fiddly, but it should only take you a few minutes, probably no more than 5 minutes.
So, if you’re playing The Sims 4 and you discover that you can’t Ask for Present from Father Winter, this is what you should do next.
First, go into Manage Worlds. It doesn’t matter which world you’re currently playing in. The first step is to find Father Winter himself. He’s also known as Clement Frost.
To locate Father Winter, select Manage Households. This will bring up all households across all the worlds in The Sims 4, not just the one you’re currently viewing.
Manage Households should be in the top right corner of the Manage Worlds screen.
Father Winter should be in this list of households somewhere. It’ll be much easier to locate him if you organize the list in alphabetical order. Scroll down to the household names starting with F. Here, you should find Father Winter. His official household name will be called Father Winter, and he should be living alone.
-
- This is what you’ll see when you first load Manage Households.
-
- Set the tab to Other Households, which is where Father Winter is listed.
-
- You can organize households by alphabetical order to make locating Father Winter easier.
-
- Father Winter’s household is simply named Father Winter.
The next task is to find out where Father Winter is living. The reason you get the bug of Ask for Present not being available is due to Father Winter moving into one of the neighborhoods. If you have a lot of DLC installed, you’ll have a lot of worlds, and locating Father Winter’s home won’t be easy. Thankfully, Manage Households has a useful addition. For every household in this list, it tells you the world the household is located in. With the world noted, go into that world’s map and find the Lot where Father Winter is living. It shouldn’t be too hard to track him down.
This particular save of The Sims 4 had Father Winter living in Evergreen Harbor. It didn’t take long to find him.
Now you’ve got Father Winter pinned down, there are two things you need to do to fix this bug. The first thing is to evict him from his home. It might seem mean, but if you want this fixed, you’ll have to do it. Select the property, open up the options, and select Evict Household. It’ll ask you to confirm, so go ahead and select Yes. Father Winter has now moved out of the Lot. He won’t disappear from the game now. You can still find him in Manage Households, and he’ll still visit during Winterfest, so evicting him doesn’t affect any of this.
-
- The Evict Household option can be found by expanding the property options.
-
- The Manage Households menu now states that Father Winter is Currently Not Living in World.
At this point, Father Winter isn’t living anywhere but is still in Manage Households. You’re not quite done here yet though. If you want to stop Father Winter moving back into any Lots and creating problems again, there’s another step you need to do. In Manage Households, find Father Winter, then select his individual Neighborhood Stories tab. By default, Neighborhood Stories is enabled, and Father Winter can do everything from retiring, adopting pets, and moving in and out. You don’t want this. You have two options. You can disable the Move In option, or you can disable Neighborhood Stories entirely for Father Winter. Again, this won’t affect your game negatively. Remember that you can always turn Neighborhood Stories back on for Father Winter if you change your mind.
-
- Father Winter’s individual Neighborhood Stories options can be found in his Manage Households tab.
-
- By default, Neighborhood Stories for all Sims will be turned on.
-
- When Neighborhood Stories is completely disabled, all the options will be faded out.
-
- Father Winter’s tab in Manage Households will look slightly different after the changes.
It’s important that you disable Neighborhood Stories AFTER you have moved him out, not before. This is because while you can edit Neighborhood Stories while he’s living somewhere, if you do this and then move him out, his Neighborhood Stories settings will be reset, going back to enabled. With this in mind, make sure you do these steps in the right order.
And that’s it! This should fix the issues you’ve been having with Father Winter. If you encounter him from now on, the option Ask for Present should be there. He should also continue to show up at your property during Winterfest as normal, as moving him out of his home doesn’t affect this.
The good news is that you can fix this even in the middle of Father Winter visiting you during Winterfest. If you’re playing and the Ask for Present interaction doesn’t show up, you can just save your game, do what you need to do, then jump right back in. Fixed!
The Ask for Present option is available again!
How Can I Prevent This From Happening Again?
This issue is caused by Father Winter moving into a property in one of the worlds. It is then fixed by moving him out. If you want to make sure he doesn’t move back into another property and create issues again, just make sure that Neighborhood Stories is disabled, or at least the Move In option. If you do this, he shouldn’t be a problem anymore.
That’s it for this guide to solving the Father Winter issue. Hopefully, this will resolve your problems with the game so you can have a much merrier and fulfilling Winterfest in your game.
