Hi!  Brajana from Mend Pet here, bringing a gift for Anea and also for you!  We've taken part in the Blog Azeroth Kris Kringle (or Secret Santa), and we've all been given a chance to write a blog post for someone else.  Hope you enjoy mine!

Winter Veil is here! And you know what that means? Time to get one step closer to your Violet Proto-Drake! But some have forgotten... that's not all the holiday events are good for. While there are some achievements you can certainly get if you're not 80, there are also plenty of great things to help you out in your quest to max level!

Let's start with Winter Veil, since that's the holiday we're in right now! There are a lot of things for leveling characters to take advantage of here.  The first thing that comes to mind is Small Eggs. When you're leveling, you're bound to run into some Tallstriders or Swoops, and they've got a great chance of dropping some eggs. Now normally, these aren't very much use... but they're required to make the Gingerbread Cookies for Greatfather Winter, and some people just can't be bothered to farm them. The holidays are the perfect time for a bit of overpriced egg selling!

If you complete the Treats for Greatfather Winter questline (which is quite simple, provided you can get your hands on some of those Small Eggs), you'll be rewarded with a package containing some low level tradeskill materials (Copper Bars, Linen Bolts, Mageroyal, or Light Leather) that you might want to use to level your skills.  If you complete the Stolen Winter Veil Treats questline you can also receive a tradeskill pattern, which you could use if you're an Engineer, Leatherworker or Tailor. Be careful, you'll want to be at least mid-30s and find a group to kill The Greench!

The next holiday of the year is Love Is In The Air, the Valentine's Day equivalent.  By talking to any NPC in town (once an hour), you can receive gifts and pledges of adoration. These might contain many good things, but the Box of Chocolates is especially nice... some free buff food for any level! A spell power increase of 35 at level 10 will give you quite the advantage.  Also, completing a Gift Collection will give you a buff: +30 Agility/Intellect/Stamina depending on the city.

The Lunar Festival will be coming up at the end of February in 2010. If you don't mind doing a bit of running around, you can get a serious amount of experience and reputation as well as a +250 health buff by traveling to each Elder. Thre are also some Engineering and Tailoring recipes you can purchase for only 5 Coins of Ancestry each. While you might not be high enough level to fight the holiday boss, Omen, if you just stand nearby when he is summoned you'll get a +10% to all stats buff!

In April we will enter into Noblegarden, full of bunnies and candy. This is a great opportunity to get some experience. Each day you can complete the Great Egg Hunt daily which will reward significant experience and gold rewards.

During Children's Week, complete the Orgrimmar/Stormwind orphan (and Shattrath and Dalaran depending on your level) quests for experience, gold and your faction's reputation, as well as a cute little non-combat pet.

Once again there are some easy experience dailies during the Midsummer Fire Festival, and you can use the Burning Blossoms rewarded to you to buy buff food from the holiday vendors.

The Harvest Festival isn't a big holiday, but it's great for people who are questing.  In from of the major cities, you'll find tables and tables of free food!  Fill your bags and you won't have to visit the food vendor in a while!  You can also get great experience (in every sense of the word) and reputation by completing the quest to honour a fallen hero.

While Brewfest is a great event to take part in, with lots of fun things to do... there isn't much that will help out people who are leveling.  However, at 6:15 AM and PM, the Tapping of the Keg event happens, and if you are there to witness you'll receive a 2 hour +10% experience buff!

More dailies in Hallow's End, including Trick or Treating once an hour or protecting the village from the Headless Horseman once a day which awards you goodies like free health and mana regen food or candies.  The biggest help during this holiday, however, is traveling to the inns around the world and visiting all the candy buckets.  These will reward you with candy, reputation and experience!

The last holiday of the year is Pilgrim's Bounty, which is mostly new this past year.  It's a great opportunity to level up your cooking!  For 1 silver, you can purchase a book of recipes containing recipes that require anywhere from level 1 cooking to level 280. The ingredients are all purchasable from the holiday vendors (except the Wild Turkey, which is easy enough to get). You can get to about 350 cooking just using these recipes exclusively! You might also want to pick up the Spirit of Sharing buff by passing all the foods at the table, which increases rep gain by 10% for an hour.

So go out, explore, and level, my friends!  And have a happy holiday which ever one you end up in!

Thank you, Brajana, for a great post about holidays - your holiday achievement guides are always helpful!