Finally a great event!

[Noshpan]

Came in here looking for some complaining about dailies. Was not disappointed.

(I don't mind FATE spamming, but the dailies do keep me involved with the holiday event if I want that minion. Very clever.)

[Niwashi]

... but the dailies do keep me involved with the holiday event if I want that minion.

You can get the minion and one of the gear pieces in the first day. (I did.)

Doing it just two days, you can get the minion, all the gear, and have a few stars left over for food items or gift bags. It's only if you want all the housing items as well that you would do the event more than twice. In that case, 6 days gets you everything. Anything past that is just for additional gift bags or duplicates of the housing items.

As for how the event is overall, I think I agree with Nalien. You have to go to three different cities just to repeat the exact same simple quest, of just touching someone's tree and coming back to give a kid an (unidentified) gift. I did rather like the "Going the Extra Smile" quest (the one with Timothy after completing each of the three dailies for the first time), but there isn't much else in this event that's worth recommending. Most of the other special events this game has had involved actually doing stuff, and were far more appealing.