Christmas Puzzle to Solve!

It’s Christmas Day, 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 Wordfinder, 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…

Winter Wordfinder!

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, friends. May the holidays be kind to you.

The answers to the clues are in the diagram in their corresponding rows across and down, but the letters are rearranged and mixed together. Each letter is used only once, so be sure to cross it out when you have used it. All the letters will be used. Solve ACROSS and DOWN together to determine the correct letter where there is a choice. The first letter of each word is shown outside the diagram and next to each clue. The first answer, TINSEL, has been filled in as an example.

Happy solving, fellow puzzlers!

The 2025 GCHQ Christmas Challenge Launches Tomorrow!

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

The GCHQ — or 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 Bletchley Park and its successes cracking the German “Enigma” code during World War II.

And now, they provide one of the coolest and puzzliest challenges of the year, designed for solvers aged eleven to eighteen to test their skills, hoping to inspire the next generation of puzzle solvers.

Yes, it’s time once again for the GCHQ Christmas card.

GCHQ card
A look at 2021’s GCHQ Christmas Card.

We provided detailed breakdowns of their Christmas cards in 2016 and 2021, and if you’d like a sample of the GCHQ Christmas Challenge, they have an archive of puzzles from three previous years ready for you to solve!

The 2025 edition of the GCHQ Christmas Challenge launches tomorrow, Wednesday December 10th for the general public. (Schools were able to register for early access to the puzzles, complete with lesson-planning materials, which is very cool.)

Here’s what the GCHQ has to say about the event:

At GCHQ, we love creating puzzles and breaking codes. That’s why every year we create the GCHQ Christmas Challenge, a series of fiendish brainteasers and puzzles, designed by our very own team of codebreakers. It encourages children aged 11-18 to think laterally and work as a team, as well as showcasing some of the skills they might need to become a spy.

The puzzles are not designed to be solved alone, and each student will bring something different to the challenge. At GCHQ, we believe the right mix of minds enables us to solve seemingly impossible problems.

I’ve always been impressed with what festive puzzly efforts GCHQ brings each year, and I can’t wait to see what the 2025 edition has in store for solvers.

So, fellow puzzlers, do you accept this year’s Christmas Challenge? Let us know in the comments section below!

Happy Thanksgiving!

lego-store-lego-november-turkey

Happy Thanksgiving, fellow puzzlers!

Today is a day for family and friends, for celebrating togetherness, for appreciating good fortune, health, and happiness. And we here at PuzzCulture are so so grateful for each and every reader and solver.

Whether you’re a puzzler or a gamer, a casual solver or a diehard devotee of all things puzzly, you can rest assured you are a welcome member of a very eclectic, charming, and downright likable community of puzzly people. =)

And so, in the spirit of giving thanks, I’ve cooked up a puzzle for my fellow puzzlers on this delightful Turkey Day.

I call this What’s Leftovers?

Following the instructions, cross off words in the diagram. When you are finished, the remaining words will form a message reading left to right, line by line. Some words may be eliminated by more than one of the instructions.

  1. Cross off all words that name family members.
  2. Cross off all NFL teams playing Thanksgiving games.
  3. Cross off all words that name parts of Thanksgiving dinner.
  4. Cross off all words that name types of pie.
  5. Cross off all words that rhyme with FORK.
  6. Cross off all words that name ways to cook turkey.
  7. Cross off all words that can follow TURKEY in a common phrase.
  8. Cross off all words that are synonyms for HUNGRY.
  9. Cross off all two-letter words in columns A and B.
  10. Cross off all words that are spelled out in the word SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS (like LIDO).

[Click here for a PDF of the puzzle to print and solve.]

Have a marvelous holiday and happy solving!

A Universal Monsters Dance Party Puzzle to Solve!

With Halloween fast approaching, I couldn’t resist putting together a Logic Puzzle for my fellow solvers to enjoy!


At the yearly monster Halloween party, everyone looks forward to the dance contest the most.

Five classic Universal monsters — Frankenstein’s Monster, Dracula, The Wolfman, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and The Mummy — have created a routine with a different partner to a different song (one is “Season of the Witch”) with a different Halloween treat afterward (including Dead Velvet Cake).

From the information provided, can you figure out all of the monster pairings (one of the dance partners is The Bride of Frankenstein), as well as each pair’s song and Halloween treat?

  1. Frankenstein’s Monster chose the song “I Put a Spell on You.”
  2. The Wolfman and Mr. Hyde didn’t choose Charlie Brownies as their Halloween treat.
  3. The Phantom of the Opera (who danced to “The Time Warp”) didn’t partner with The Creature From the Black Lagoon.
  4. Dracula (who chose “Black Magic Woman”) didn’t choose The Babadook as a dance partner, but The Babadook enjoyed Boo-Scotti as a Halloween treat.
  5. The Invisible Man’s Halloween treat was the Scare-amel Apples.
  6. The Creature from the Black Lagoon (who didn’t dance to “Thriller”) enjoyed the Black Cat Cookies.

Did you solve the puzzle and pair up these monstrous dance partners? Let us know in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you!

A Monster Mash-Up Game!

In honor of Halloween and all the delightful monsters that make for great movies, impressive costumes, and memorable moments, I’ve put together a game for you called Monster Mash-Up!

Some of these are film, TV, and video game monsters, some are mythical creatures, some are cryptids. Can you mash up two of these famous monsters by overlapping letters to create a proper monster mash?

Image courtesy of Psychonautica on ArtStation.

For example, what would you call seductive female demons hanging out in the Pacific Northwest?

Hopefully, you’d come up with Succubigfoot! (Don’t worry, they get better from here.)

Without further ado, let’s get to the game!


TWENTY MONSTER MASH-UPS!

  • A Canadian lake haunted by a Japanese kaiju?
  • Twas’ Boo-ty killed the beast?
  • A visit to Jabba’s palace gives you butterflies, sorta?
  • She has snakes up there and dune there?
  • Things get hairy in a flower shop?
  • More necks mean more bites? Or more places to bite?
  • A Mexican wailer looking for fellowship?
  • A blue fuzzy being beholden to the moon?
  • Nothing good happens after midnight, either when fed or lurking in a woman’s dreams?
  • An abominable way for livestock to go?
  • A Spanish devil with an appetite?
  • A serpent king of the smelly Everglades?
  • Straight from hell to an Asian desert with mysterious electrical flashes?
  • A bridge disaster of Biblical proportions?
  • From crimson kids books to Grimm’s fairy tales?
  • A giant giant Native American raptor?
  • A chimera in the Black Lagoon?
  • A First Nation monster, but small, green, and mean?
  • A shell of a way to find monstrous tangled rodents?
  • A horny Legend of Scottish folklore?

How many did you get, fellow monster maniacs? Let us know in the comments section below. We’d love to hear from you!

Overlaps: TV/Book Edition

One of my favorite go-to trivia games is Overlaps. Basically, the answer to the trivia question is a combination of two titles. You can use movies, celebrity names, anything really.

And I thought I’d share one of my Overlaps games with you today, fellow puzzler.

Here’s an example to get you started:

A hardworking midwestern mom is mistaken for an 11 year old orphan girl and goes to Avonlea.

And the answer is: Roseanne of Green Gables

Can you unravel these descriptions that overlap a TV show title and a book title?

Let’s find out!


A look at the day-to-day work lives of Thought Police working for Big Apple Brother.

A love quadrangle and an amateur play performance cross paths with a popular shape-named game show involving getting a partner to say the right word.

A talking horse says one thing and means his mother in this curious tale of trying to avoid fate.

Firemen, police, and EMTs in Los Angeles find themselves in a mental institution under the thumb of a tyrannical nurse.

Time and relative dimensions in space are bent by a curious visitor to a disfunctional middle-aged couple’s home after a university faculty party.

456 players compete for a grand prize as the political climate of Westeros changes forever.

With a sword and chakram in hand, a former marauder shares her story of balancing life in high school and her new royal duties.

Wacky hijinks ensue as a man shares the story of courting a famous author of fairy tales and nursery rhymes.

A high schooler with grand ambitions and a habit of stopping time to talk to the camera endures struggles with mental health after her aspiring post-college writing career fails to materialize.

Piloting giant mechanical battle suits to battle angels, the Pevensie children liberate a magical land from the White Witch.

A programming startup company deals with funding issues and a dependence on drugs to navigate turbulent personal and professional relationships in New York City after World War II.

A video diary to a newborn baby from her older sibling serves as the golden ticket to a peculiar candymaker’s legacy.

The misadventures of a young man and his scuffling siblings in a fictional Midlands town in the 1800s as issues of women’s rights, marriage, and political reform are explored.

Two secret service agents seek dangerous magical artifacts while listening to audio tapes recorded by a young woman who committed suicide.

Travel to a curious locale where dreams can come true, particularly for the one woman who lives there, waiting for her people to return for her.

A sharp-tongued and satirical look at the news is presented by a two-inch boy who looks just like a mouse.


How many did you unravel? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.