Xmas Grind 2026

Description

Xmas Grind is a modpack built for the annual return to Minecraft during the holidays. It focuses on a smooth, content-rich experience that rewards both exploration and creativity. The 2026 edition runs on Minecraft 26.3 with NeoForge. It builds on last year's pack, adds more to explore, and fixes the rough edges players ran into.

Exploration

New biomes from Biomes O' Plenty and reshaped terrain from Tectonic make every journey look different. The world is full of new places to find: Dungeons and Taverns overhauls of every major vanilla structure (strongholds, mansions, ancient cities, monuments, fortresses and more), plus Structory, Formations, Towns and Towers, Repurposed Structures and Underground Villages. Nullscape reworks the End.

Waystones scattered across the world let you travel quickly between places you've found. Waystones generated in the world are protected and can't be picked up and carried off. Loot chests are per player, so friends never compete for the same loot.

Xaero's Minimap and World Map keep you oriented. Distant Horizons and Iris with Complementary Reimagined shaders, set up out of the box, show the world at its best.

Building

Rechiseled, connected textures, connected glass and Additional Lights give you more blocks and more ways to decorate. Storage Drawers and Sophisticated Backpacks keep the loot you bring home organized.

Enchanting and XP

New enchantments include Soulbound, Life Steal, Eternal and XP Boost, and Enchantment Descriptions explains each one. The Dis-Enchanting Table lets you move enchantments off your gear. Global XP and XP Tomes let you store experience and share it. Recipes for these are rebalanced for this pack, so they take some effort to earn.

Gameplay

GraveStone keeps your items safe when you die, and soulbound items stay with you. Heart canisters raise your maximum health, and Spice of Life rewards a varied diet. Clearer tooltips, JEI with extra pages for resources, trades, professions and breeding, Jade, faster crafting and inventory tweaks, and easy harvesting take the friction out of everyday play. Freecam and Zoom are included too. On servers, Freecam can't pass through walls, so it can't be used as X-ray.

Performance

Sodium, Lithium, C2ME, FerriteCore, ImmediatelyFast, Entity Culling, ServerCore and more keep the game smooth on both client and server, even with long view distances.

What's new since 2025

• Moved to Minecraft 26.3
• Much more to explore: Dungeons and Taverns with overhauls of every major vanilla structure, Formations (Overworld and Nether), Underground Villages, Nullscape for the End, Tectonic terrain and Streams rivers
• Loot Integrations fills the new structures with fitting loot
• Heart canisters for extra health and Spice of Life for food variety
• Global XP: store experience in XP Blocks and share it
• More JEI pages (trades, filtering) and extra performance mods (FerriteCore, Packet Fixer)
• Soulbound items now work with GraveStone
• Waystones in generated structures can no longer be destroyed and taken
• Rebalanced recipes for the Dis-Enchanting Table, XP Tome and XP Block

Support

Server Notes

A ready-to-run server pack is included with every release. Unzip it, run install.bat / install.sh once, then run.bat / run.sh. See the NeoForged server guide for details.

Known Issues

None known yet. If you find one, please report it.