Tag Archives: Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve Puzzle to Solve!

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It’s Christmas Eve, fellow puzzlers, and it’s tradition around here to celebrate the holidays with a free puzzle to solve!

This year is no exception, as I’ve cooked up something festive and fun for you.

Our friends at Penny/Dell Puzzles have a puzzle called First and Last, and when I thought of it, I immediately had the idea to do a holiday-themed version of it.

As you might’ve already guessed, I called it…

First and Last Christmas!

You can click here to download a PDF copy of the puzzle to solve, and I’ve included the full details in this puzzle below so you know what you’re getting into!

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah, friends. May the holidays be kind to you.

The answer to each clue can be found in the diagram. You can move up, down, backward, and forward, but not diagonally. Do not skip over any squares. The last letter of each answer is the first letter of the next answer; otherwise, each letter is used only once. The answer to the first clue begins in the outlined box, and the first and last letters of each answer are circled. Plus every word in the grid is festively themed. Good luck!

  1. This holiday song was the first song played in space (during the flight of Gemini 6A in December 1965)
  2. Stocking __
  3. Santa has eight or nine of these, depending on the song
  4. On the fifth day of Christmas, you get five of these
  5. There are 35 different shapes possible for this
  6. George Washington had a boozy recipe for this that included the instruction “Taste frequently”
  7. “The Elves and the Shoemaker” were just one story attributed to brothers by this name
  8. Holiday plant sometimes called “witches’ brooms”
  9. Good choice for a Christmas tree
  10. Scene featuring shepherds and magi (oh, and a baby, I guess)
  11. The Christmas season, of yore
  12. After leaving Bethlehem, Joseph, Mary, and Jesus traveled here
  13. This was originally made of hammered silver
  14. Holiday lights also known as farolitos
  15. __ calendar
  16. “Santa Claus is Coming to __“

Counting Down the Hours With Some Holiday Trivia!

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As you well know, fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers, we usually post a puzzle to celebrate a given holiday.

But last year we started a new holiday tradition and offered you some trivia to help count down the hours until Christmas Day!

So this year, we’re doing it again. That’s right, twelve questions on holiday pop culture from around the world. How does that sound?

Feel free to cherry-pick from these questions for your own Yuletide trivia. We’ve tried to keep it relatively easy and accessible, though a few tougher historical questions might’ve snuck in alongside the song trivia and the food trivia.

Enjoy!

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1. What holiday song was the first song played in space?

2. How old was Brenda Lee when she recorded Christmas classic “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”?

3. Saint Nicholas, whom Santa Claus is based on, is from what country?

4. Which well-known Christmas song was originally a Thanksgiving song?

5. How many days of Kwanzaa are there?

6. When are gingerbread houses believed to have been invented? 

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7. Which founding father had a famously boozy eggnog recipe that forgot to note the number of eggs needed but included the instruction “Taste frequently”?

8. Who was the first U.S. president to recognize Hanukkah in the White House?

9. You can stay at the original “Home Alone” house through Airbnb. Where is the home – and film – located?

10. In Oaxaca City, Mexico, Noche de rábanos is celebrated every 23rd December. Which food gives this festival its name?

11. Which Christmas song’s second verse begins with “The cattle are lowing”?

12. After leaving Bethlehem, to which country did Joseph, Mary, and Jesus travel?

Do you have any favorite nuggets of holiday trivia? Please share it with us in the comment section below! We’d love to hear from you.

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A puzzly British Christmas card!

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One government agency in England celebrates Christmas a little bit differently than most.

The GCHQ — Government Communications Headquarters — provides security and intelligence services for the British government. Back when they were known as GC&CS — Government Code and Cypher School — they were responsible for funding the Bletchley Park successes cracking the German “Enigma” code during World War II.

And for Christmas this year, they’ve released a puzzly Christmas card that’s sure to challenge even the staunchest puzzlers.

Step 1 of the puzzle is a logic art puzzle where you have to deduce where to place black squares on an open grid in order to form a picture.

Each column and row has a series of numbers in it. These numbers represent runs of black squares in a row, so a 1 means there’s one black square followed by a blank square on either side and a 7 means 7 black squares together with a blank square on either side.

Once you’ve solved this puzzle, you can use it to unlock the next puzzle in the chain.

From an article on GCHQ.gov.uk:

Once all stages have been unlocked and completed successfully, players are invited to submit their answer via a given GCHQ email address by 31 January 2016. The winner will then be drawn from all the successful entries and notified soon after.

Players are invited to make a donation to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, if they have enjoyed the puzzle.

This is one majorly challenging Christmas card. After you’ve conquered the logic art puzzle, you’ll confront brain teasers, palindromes, pattern-matching, deduction, number progressions, codebreaking, cryptic crossword-style cluing, and more.

I would highly recommend teaming up with another puzzle-minded friend (or more) and trying your luck. Let us know how far you get! (And you can hit up this article from the Telegraph for aid as well.)

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