Pokémon GO Holidays 2021 Part 2 Galarian Mr Mime and Mr Rime

This image was taken early this year. I decided to edit the Pokémon into it to make a fitting photo.

Earlier this week the second part of the Pokémon GO Holidays 2021 event started, so let's have a blog post about a bit of week 1 and what's new in week 2.

During the full event period, Mega Abomasnow gets a CP boost. Throughout the month I found some Field Research Tasks to get some Abomasnow Mega Energy, especially with the even starting as the event has some tasks for 25 Energy. This allowed me to collect enough to Mega Evolve Abomasnow for the first time. Which I did early on in the event. Here you can see the process and the Mega Pokédex registry.

Throughout the event I've Mega Evolved it a few times already. I can now get more Mega Energy for it by walking and I've still been doing some Field Research Tasks when I found them. Which allows me to have it Mega Evolved more often. This provides +1 Candy for all Ice- and Grass-type Pokémon I catch. It also helps to make slow progress for the medal that requires Mega Evolving a certain amount of times. Here's a photo of the Mega Abomasnow, which I caught as a Snover back in August.

I managed to encounter a Shiny Holiday Stantler this event! Which is even more exciting because I had never encountered Shiny Stantler itself until now. That's a new Shiny! 😄

With part 2 of the event, Bergmite and Avalugg have been added to the game. Here you can see screenshots of my first Bergmite encounter and my Bergmite Pokédex registry.

This event features a Catch Challenge and a Friendship Challenge. They're both under the Today view and are time-limited until the end of the event. Here is a quick overview of what you need to do for them.

I already completed the Catch Challenge. For the Friendship Challenge I couldn't yet, because it requires sending gifts to friends 3 days in a row. Even if I finished most of the tasks, I didn't claim any of the encounters yet. The Catch Challenge only gives Poké Balls, Great Balls and Ultra Balls for individual tasks but an encounter as completion reward.

These Timed Research tasks will lead to an encounter with Galarian Mr. Mime as mentioned in Niantic's blog post about the event. I'll find out what the other encounters are once I can complete the "Send Gifts 3 Days in a Row" task. When I completed all of these and caught them all I'll make a blog post about it. I'm hoping there is a Holiday Glaceon in the list of encounters.

Field Research Tasks for the event remained mostly the same. I'm not sure if the Catch 7 different species of Pokémon has changed to Alolan Sandshrew because I haven't received one from it yet nor heard from any friends. But it might have. I suggest giving it a try if you get that Field Research task and want to complete it.
The Field Research task for Cryogonal did go away now, and has now been replaced by Hatch an Egg for a Galarian Darumaka encounter.

How did the first part of the event go for you? Are you close to completing the Catch and Friendship Challenges already?