Special Reward

In the tradition of the season, you will also receive special holiday-themed headgear if you attend the Wintersday finale. And this year, the hat you receive will depend on which deity wins the day, so choose wisely.

Do i just have to be there on the finale and i get a hat? or do i need to do anything else?

I was there for the 2005 event. For that one, Avatar of Dwayna and an Avatar of Grenth appeared in Lion's Arch. Players chose and stood by one of them to show support. After some time of speaking and throwing out gifts, the god with the most supporters won and that determined whether players got Yule Caps or the Horns. Not sure if you had to be there on their arrival to get the hat though, I was there before they came. Certain districts were kinda player designated to support Dwayna and others for Grenth which helped players to get the specific heargear they wanted. In short, you just had to be there.

No idea if the above changed for 2006.

basically what the above poster said.
You have to be there on the second they give the present out really. So yes the finale.
There will be 1 hat for dwayna and 1 for grenth in lions arch
and 1 hat for dwayna and 1 for grenth in kamden
Basically kamden starts afterwards so you are able to pick up all 4 with good district switching

It was like Caged said in 2006. If you were rooting for Dwayna and she won, you got her headgear and same with Grenth. If you lost, you got nothing. And you had to be in the city from the time a god appeared until one of the sides won.

ok thanks for info, i always wanted a ceremony hat or special event hat but always thought you had to do something special maybe get some score in the mini games etc.

Also, for they added this for last years event, part of how they determined which god won was based on how many people were on that god's side PLUS the amount of candy cane shards(candy canes?-need to wiki this to make sure I got it right) in each players inventory added up some total to show which side was winning.

Not seeing the info I was looking for on wiki, but I do remember that CC shards were counted as a "total" to determine winner.

It was kind of like 9 rings, your candy cane shard acted as festival tickets from the shing jea boardwalk.

From 2006 of course.

Usually the gw community has decided that the even districts are for one god to win, the odd districts are for the other, I want to say grenth was odd.

That is correct.
For the new:
To help obtain all the hats and to ensure everyone knew which god was the goal of that district, the districts were separated into two sorts by the players:
Odd was Grenth districts,
Even was Dwyana Districts.

when is this happening? this saturday? next saturday, i thought i remembered someone saying the 22nd...

it is on the wintersday finale the 24th? That's how i remember it

The finale will be on 1-1-08, according to the official site.

This is correct. Every three hours starting at 12:01 AM PST on Jan. 1. (A-Net recognizes the fact that not everyone celebrates Christmas)

Or they celebrate the fact that many people are rather busy over Christmas, too busy to play computer games.
Really wish they would have Wintersday either a couple of weeks before Christmas or a week after New Years day.
That way we can socalise with our friends and families without feeling we are missing out.

Unless that hits another holiday in other countries.