Tag Archives: puzzly holiday

The Greatest Gift Exchange There Never Was…

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If you’re a puzzle and game enthusiast, there are many dates and events to look forward to each year. There’s Free RPG Day, National Tabletop Day, the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, and all sorts of tournaments and contests and reasons to gather.

But after Thanksgiving, as the holiday season arrives, there isn’t really a puzzly or game-fueled event that comes to mind. (Though the Boswords Winter Wondersolve is coming in February!)

That is, there isn’t an official puzzle or game holiday in December.

But in 2013, there was a holiday festivity that brought together the worlds of puzzles and games in truly delightful and chaotically creative fashion.

For 2013 marked the birth of the White Heffalump Gift Exchange.

A heffalump… according to Disney, anyway…

You’re probably familiar with the concept of the White Elephant gift exchange, wherein everyone supplies a gift, and then a game of keeping or swapping takes over, allowing people to take turns, develop friendly little rivalries, and generally enjoy a bit of holiday frivolity.

A White Heffalump gift exchange works the same way, but with one marvelous twist: every gift is imaginary.

That year, puzzle constructor and game designer Mike Selinker brought together more than 50 puzzlers, game designers, artists, and creators from all walks of life to participate in the first ever White Heffalump gift exchange.

Constructors like Eric Berlin, Brendan Emmett Quigley, and Debbie Manber Kupfer joined artists like Stan! and John Kovalic of Dork Tower fame. Game designers like Steve Jackson, Paul Peterson, Matt Forbeck, Elisa Teague, and James Ernest showed off their imaginary creations to other attendees like writer and RPG actual play icon Patrick Rothfuss and cookbook author / Geeky Hostess Tara Theoharis.

And the entire exchange took place on Twitter, so fans and friends alike could enjoy the madcap holiday cheer.

Just some of the amazing White Heffalump offerings from its inaugural year…

A pet squid, a pocket pet named Prudence that GRANTS WISHES, “time to play with toys”, a dapper platypus, and a 29-word crossword were among some of the other silly, impossible, imaginary gifts brought to the exchange.

And although we’ve never seen anything like it again — publicly, at least — there’s no doubt that this festive explosion of maniacal creative expression inspired others to organize their own White Heffalump exchanges.

How do I know this?

Well, because I’ve hosted one for fellow puzzlers for the last eight years now, and the array of ridiculous, delightful, impractical, and mind-bending gifts have been an absolute delight to see shared.

Bob Ross’s Happy Little Trees, complete and total dominion over the planet Pluto, a paid internship with Carmen Sandiego, the ability to harness the magic of unicorn farts (*unicorn not included), a puppy-summoning button, and Your Very Own “No Pickle” Person are just a few of the glorious gifts that have been bandied about over the years of our annual imaginary get-togethers.

It’s an absolute blast, a reason to gather (virtually OR in-person), and all it costs is a little time and imagination.

Given that puzzles and games all start with that — that elusive mote of inspiration, the spark that ignites a creative wildfire — nothing feels truer to both the spirit of the season and to the heart of gaming and puzzling than a bit of White Heffalump fun.

It certainly brightens my holiday season every year. Give it a shot and see if it stirs your soul as well.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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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.

Can you provide the three-letter answers to these clues and fill the grid? Some words will be entered clockwise, some counterclockwise.

If you do it correctly, a word will read clockwise around the edges of the diagram.

And here’s a collection of previous Thanksgiving puzzles we’ve created over the years:

Let us know if you solved the puzzle! Happy Thanksgiving!

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? 

eggnog-SOC

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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Tackling the GCHQ 2021 Christmas Card!

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GCHQ card

Every year, one of the puzzliest challenges many solvers will encounter all year descends upon the world, as the GCHQ issue their Christmas card.

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.

This year’s Christmas card was directed toward solvers with a secondary school education (essentially solvers age 11 and up), and was less complicated than offerings in previous years, but still offered an engaging challenge.

Here’s the link in case you’d like to try it for yourself.

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Last chance before we walk through the solution!

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Okay, ready? Good! Let’s do this!

GCHQ card 1a

Clue number one is an easy one, as you simply read the first letter of each word in the message. Your solution is CHRISTMAS.

Clue number two is a simple 4×4 across-and-down grid where 1-Across and 1-Down are the same word, 2-Across and 2-Down are the same word, and so on. The completed grid reads:

T H I S
H O O T
I O W A
S T A G

And the letters in THIS are highlighted in the grid, so the solution is THIS.

GCHQ card 1b

Clue number three is a complete-the-sequence puzzle where the names of the Hogwarts houses from Harry Potter are listed, but each house in the sequence has more letters missing from the beginning and end of the word. Slytherin is the missing house, and with three letters missing from the beginning and end of the word, your solution is THE.

Clue number four is a Blackout! or Minesweeper-style puzzle where you deduce the location of bombs in the grid according to numbers in the neighboring squares. Once you’re marked off each of the bombs, the remaining spaces form letters and spell out a word. Your solution is SAFE.

GCHQ card 1c

Clue number five is a mnemonic device, and solvers must puzzle out what chain of related words is represented by the device. In this case, the major taxonomic ranks that are used to organize related living things are represented, and the word Kindly points toward the second word in the taxonomic ranks, so your solution is Kingdom.

Clue number six has three overlapping circles, each with letters inside, and you have to figure out not only what the words are, but what missing six-letter word would sit in the middle of this Venn diagram.

I found this to be the hardest puzzle in the card by far, as I tried and failed in numerous attempts to anagram the letters into recognizable words. Finally, I decoded the shortest word — LEEDS — only because I remembered that this is a British organization and I have friends who live in Leeds.

Leeds led me to unraveling the other two answers — MANCHESTER and NEWCASTLE — and my meager knowledge of European football provided the missing six-letter word. The solution is UNITED.

GCHQ card 1d

Clue number seven is a simple cryptogram, and is quickly decoded to read “This is the 7th question: people born between nineteen forty-six and nineteen sixty-four are commonly known as baby what?”

The solution appears to be BOOMERS, but there is an additional instruction to follow after decoding the message, and you must encode the answer. Following the same letter-substitution rule, BOOMERS becomes KEEPING, and that is your solution.

GCHQ card 2

Now each word must be placed in order on the tree for your message to properly read out.

  • The word BABY in clue 7 points toward the stroller icon, so our message begins with KEEPING.
  • The lightning bolt icon refers to Harry Potter, so the word THE from clue 3 goes next.
  • The soccer ball icon points to clue 6, so the word UNITED continues the message.
  • The word KINGDOM from clue 5 aligns with the crown icon, so that’s our fourth word.
  • The lock icon is most closely associated with SAFE from clue 4, so that’s next.
  • At first, I thought the image of the Stag was a Harry Potter reference, but I then realized that STAG was one of the answers in clue 2’s grid, so this was the place for THIS.
  • Finally, the present is the perfect spot for clue 1’s solution, CHRISTMAS.

And the message is revealed, celebrating the mission of the GCHQ itself: Keeping the United Kingdom Safe This Christmas.

Did you unravel this festive puzzly challenge, fellow PuzzleNationers? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.

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Hosting A Holiday Puzzle Hunt?

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If you’re looking to spruce up Christmas morning with a puzzly challenge, or maybe prevent the kids from tearing through that wrapping paper in record time, you could create a mini holiday puzzle hunt for them to extend the holiday fun a little longer.

There are several ways to do this. You could have Santa leave them a treasure map to follow. You could create a scavenger hunt with different places to check. Or you could create a puzzle hunt where each clue or puzzle leads to the next and has to be solved in order.

But how do you flesh it out and keep it seasonal? We’ve got a host of suggestions awaiting you. Sprinkle a few of these across the house on Christmas morning and you’ll be sure to delight the puzzly denizens of your home after Santa has come and gone.

Maybe they have to look for gifts wrapped in a particular type of wrapping paper. Perhaps there are clues written on them or hidden inside, or maybe the wrapping paper itself sends them on to their next clue.

If it’s more of a scavenger hunt-style of game, the wrapping paper approach is perfect. They could be stashed around the house, waiting to be found, and there’s no threat of them being mixed up with the actual gifts.

Perhaps there are puzzle pieces at the bottom of their stockings, and they have to work together to assemble them and figure out where to go next. (Craft stores have plain white mini jigsaw puzzles, you could write out or draw out clues, mix up the pieces, and distribute them in several spots with ease.)

Did Santa leave a clue when he sampled the milk and cookies left out of him? Maybe a gingerbread man points the kids in a certain direction, or Santa urges the children to have breakfast before the festivities start (pushing them toward another clue in the kitchen AND toward a healthy Christmas breakfast in the morning).

Your Christmas tree is also perfect for concealing clues and puzzly elements. With lights and ornaments galore, it’s the ideal spot to hide things, whether it’s letters that spell things out, or numbered clues to be solved in order. You could even hang different numbers of various objects (6 candy canes, 3 silver stars, 4 photo ornaments) that are used as a code later to unlock something.

Does the Elf on a Shelf have a clue? Did it see something, or can it point them in the right direction? Is there a paper chain of snowflakes where the different branches of the snowflake are highlighted like clock hands?

Once you start looking at the trappings of the holiday in a puzzly way, you’ll find more and more methods for stashing hints and elements of your puzzle hunt anywhere and everywhere.

Hopefully these suggestions got you off to a good start! Have you hosted a holiday puzzle hunt or celebrated the holidays in a puzzly way, fellow PuzzleNationers? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.

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Sweep Your Eyes Across These Ugly Puzzly Sweaters!

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proper ugly sweater

It’s December, and you’ve probably already received an invitation to some sort of holiday event. Maybe it’s a housewarming, or a holiday luncheon, or a game night. But, maybe, it’s an ugly sweater party.

Ugly sweater parties used to be events that ironically appreciated sweaters that were made with genuine affection, but simply didn’t please the eye. But once ugly sweaters became a part of pop culture, they became, as all things do, a cottage industry, and now companies release “ugly” Christmas sweaters for every pop culture property imaginable.

Most of them are simply underwhelming — and a few are often actually quite lovely — but none of them really capture the spirit of the original ugly sweater party ideal.

abominable sweater

Of course, there are exceptions.

And then, there are the ones I’m on the fence about. Check out this Minesweeper-inspired ugly sweater from Microsoft:

minesweeper sweater

It’s not garish by any means. It’s cleverly designed and weirdly festive. But I also can’t imagine anyone buying it.

It’s certainly unique.

But it raised the question…

What other puzzly ugly sweaters are out there? Would they all feel too corporate like the modern ugly sweater patternings, or could I find some genuine diamonds in the rough?

Let’s find out, shall we?

Of course, when you type “puzzle ugly sweater” into Google, you find an amazing array of jigsaw puzzles featuring ugly sweater designs. And honestly, what a great idea for an image for a jigsaw. The riot of colors alone would make for a pretty fun jigsaw solving experience.

So I started pairing different puzzle brands with “ugly sweater” in my searches, and I began to yield some results, however mixed.

rubiks color sweater

There’s this Rubik’s sweater design, which I find a bit meh. It’s nice, it’s unoffensive. But it’s not the colorful visual assault I was hoping for.

I mean, look at this Rubik’s hoodie on Amazon. At least that seems to be trying to overwhelm your senses.

ugly rubik hoodie

So what about Tetris? Tetris is part of the fabric of modern puzzling. Surely there must be some Tetris-fueled designs for ugly sweaters.

tetris moscow sweater orig

The first result I found was this pattern, which is actually quite lovely. It’s discontinued in its original sweater form, but lives on as a print for t-shirts.

tetris stack shirt

There’s also this festive message delivered in the style of the monumentally successful Game Boy Tetris version of the puzzle classic. (I’ll probably end up ordering this shirt.)

These are festive, but hardly fit the ugly sweater criteria.

falling tetris sweater

Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. It’s not particularly Christmas-y, but it does manage to barrage the eyes with color.

ugly tetris sweater

I found this one on Poshmark, and supposedly it won some sort of ugly sweater contest. Not sure who judged that one. This isn’t great, but it’s hardly ugly.

Alas, where else can we look?

math sweater

Well, there’s this ugly sweater-patterned take on the math puzzles that periodically circulate on social media. I couldn’t find it in actual sweater form, but it’s a start.

(It also exemplifies the unsatisfying corporate nature of the modern ugly sweater pattern. Festive borders on the top and bottom, and the hook in between. Nothing on the sleeves or back, no real effort involved.)

Finally, I turned my attention to crossword-specific sweaters, and I struck gold. None of these are particularly festive, but you could slap a bow on them and get past any discerning bouncer at the ugly sweater party of your choice in these.

pas de mer crossword sweater

This pas de mer sweater feels like you’re looking at a cryptic crossword grid through a funhouse mirror.

poshmark diffusion crossword sweater

I also found this sweater on Poshmark. You’ll be heartbroken to discover it’s already been sold. But man, you could easily wear this one at the crossword tournament or ugly sweater party of your choice and turn a few heads.

ebay ugly sweater

I wish I could find a bigger picture of this one somewhere. It was clearly made with love, and it’s one of the few that actually feels like a proper crossword grid.

crossword sweater vest

What is it about a sweater vest that somehow makes this worse than a normal sweater? Maybe it’s how the boxes don’t quite line up, or the two-letter words trailing off near the armpits. Man, this is pretty bad.

boating crossword sweater

And this one, fellow puzzlers, was the pièce de résistance. The random crisscross placement. The color palette. The way the lighthouse beam doesn’t make it past the center buttons, condemning the proud cross-legged sailor nearby to a disastrous collision with the rocks near the shore.

This might not be a Christmas sweater, but man, does it fit the bill in every other way.

Do you have any favorite ugly sweater designs? Are any of them puzzle-fueled? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.

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