Answers to our Reworded Holiday Songs Puzzle!

village-carolers
Image courtesy of The Sun Papers.

A week ago, I shared a holiday puzzle rewording 31 different Christmas songs and carols. And now it’s time to reveal the answers!


1.) Move hitherward the entire assembly of those who are loyal in their belief.

Oh Come All Ye Faithful

2.) Listen, the celestial messengers produce harmonious sounds.

Hark, the Herald Angels Sing

3.) Proceed forth declaring upon a specific geological alpine formation.

Go Tell It on the Mountain

4.) Nocturnal timespan of unbroken quietness.

Silent Night

5.) Embellish the interior passageways.

Deck the Halls

6.) An emotion excited by the acquisition or expectation of good given to the terrestrial sphere.

Joy to the World

7.) Twelve o’clock on a clement night witnessed its arrival.

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

8.) The Christmas preceding all others.

The First Noel

9.) Small municipality in Judea southeast of Jerusalem.

Oh Little Town of Bethlehem

10.) In a distant location the existence of an improvised unit of newborn children’s slumber furnishings.

Away in a Manger

11.) Tintinnabulation of vacillating pendulums in inverted, metallic, resonant cups.

Jingle Bells

12.) The first person nominative plural of a triumvirate of far eastern heads of state.

We Three Kings (of Orient Are)

13.) Geographic state of fantasy during the season of Mother Nature’s dormancy.

Winter Wonderland

14.) In awe of the nocturnal timespan characterized by religiosity.

Oh Holy Night

15.) Natal celebration devoid of color, rather albino, as an hallucinatory phenomenon for me.

I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas

16.) Expectation of arrival to populated areas by mythical, masculine perennial gift-giver.

Here Comes Santa Claus

17.) Obese personification fabricated of compressed mounds of frozen minute crystals.

Frosty the Snowman

18.) Tranquility upon the terrestrial sphere.

Peace on Earth

19.) Omnipotent supreme being who elicits respite to ecstatic distinguished males.

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

20.) Diminutive masculine master of skin-covered percussionistic cylinders.

Little Drummer Boy

21.) Jovial Yuletide desired for the second person singular or plural by us.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas OR We Wish You a Merry Christmas

22.) Allow winter precipitation in the form of atmospheric water vapor in crystalline form to descend.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

23.) A first-person observer witnessed a female progenitor engaging in osculation with a hirsute nocturnal intruder.

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

24.) Your continued presence remains the sole Yuletide request of the speaker in question.

All I Want For Christmas Is You OR You’re All I Want for Christmas

25.) Permanent domicile during multiple specific celebratory periods.

(There’s No Place Like) Home for the Holidays

26.) Diminutive person regarded as holy or virtuous known by the informal moniker shared by two former Russian tsars.

Little St. Nick

27.) More than a passing resemblance to an annual winter festival is emerging.

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

28.) Are you registering the same auditory phenomenon I am currently experiencing?

Do You Hear What I Hear?

29.) Overhead at the summit of the suburban residence.

Up on the House Top

30.) Attractive or otherwise visually pleasing wood pulp product.

Pretty Paper

31.) Parasitic European shrub accompanied by a plant with prickly green leaves and baccate qualities.

Mistletoe and Holly OR The Holly and the Ivy


How did you do? Did you get them all, or did one or two stump you? Let me know!

Tackling the GCHQ 2021 Christmas Card!

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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Solution to the Smith-Jones-Robinson Problem!

[Image courtesy of SharpBrains.com.]

A week ago, we shared a brain teaser sent in by a PuzzleNationer named Brian, who challenged us to solve the following challenge.

Today, we’re going to share not only the solution, but how we got there! Please enjoy this brief solve and tutorial, inspired by one of your fellow PuzzleNationers!


The Smith-Jones-Robinson Problem

Every fact is important. The puzzle is as follows:

On a train, three men named Smith, Jones, and Robinson are the fireman, brakeman, and engineer, but not necessarily in that order. Also on the train are three businessmen who have the same names as the train crew. They will be referred to as Mr. Smith, Mr. Jones, and Mr. Robinson.

  • Mr. Robinson lives in Detroit.
  • The brakeman lives exactly halfway between Chicago and Detroit.
  • Mr. Jones earns exactly $20,000 per year, paid in thousand-dollar bills.
  • The brakeman’s nearest neighbor, one of the passengers, earns exactly three times as much as the brakeman, and is also paid in thousand-dollar bills.
  • Smith beats the fireman at billiards.
  • The passenger whose name is the same as the brakeman’s lives in Chicago.

From the information listed above, can you figure out the name of the engineer?


ticket to ride

We’re given one exact number, so let’s start there.

The brakeman’s nearest neighbor, one of the passengers, earns exactly three times as much as the brakeman. Mr. Jones earns exactly $20,000 per year, which cannot be divided evenly by three (in thousand dollar bills), so Mr. Jones is NOT the brakeman’s nearest neighbor.

The brakeman lives exactly halfway between Chicago and Detroit, and Mr. Robinson lives in Detroit, so Mr. Robinson cannot be the passenger who lives nearest to the brakeman. And as we just determined, Mr. Jones is also not the brakeman’s nearest neighbor. That leaves Mr. Smith as the brakeman’s nearest neighbor.

This tells us about the passengers, but how does it help us with the train crew?

Well, the passenger whose name is the same as the brakeman’s lives in Chicago. And neither Mr. Robinson nor Mr. Smith (who is nearest to the brakeman) can live in Chicago. That tells us Mr. Jones lives in Chicago.

This means that the brakeman’s name is Jones.

We can finally turn our attention to the train crew now.

Now that we know the brakeman’s name is Jones, that leaves only Smith and Robinson as possibilities. And we know that Smith beats the fireman at billiards. Smith can’t be the fireman or the brakeman, so Smith must be the engineer.

Did you identify the engineer and outwit the Smith-Jones-Robinson Problem? Let us know in the comments section below. We’d love to hear from you!


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Solutions to Our June Brain Teasers!

Two weeks ago, we shared a pair of brain teasers sent in by a PuzzleNationer who discovered these particular deduction and math thinkers in a book of riddles and puzzles.

Today, we’re going to share not only the solutions, but how we got there! Please enjoy this brief solve and tutorial, courtesy of brain teasers from your fellow PuzzleNationers!


[Image courtesy of SharpBrains.com.]

Brain Teaser #1: There is a three-digit number. All three digits are different. The second digit is four times as big as the third digit, while the first digit is three less than the second digit. What is the number?

Solution: 582

This is a fairly simple one, but if you’re unfamiliar with brain teasers, or uncomfortable in general with number puzzles, it can be off-putting. No worries, though! We’ve got you covered.

We know the second digit is four times as big as the third. That leaves only two options for those digits: 4 and 1 or 8 and 2.

If the first digit is three less than the second digit, it can’t be 4 and 1, because that would be 4 minus 1, or 1 for the first digit, and the first and third digits can’t be the same.

That means it’s 8 and 2 for the second and third digits. So if the first digit is three less than the second, the first digit is 5, and the three-digit number is 582.


calendar pages

Brain Teaser #2: When asked about his birthday, a man said, “The day before yesterday, I was only 25, and next year I will turn 28.” This is true only one day in a year – what day was he born?

Solution: He was born on December 31st and spoke about it on January 1st.

The wording in this one is especially important, because at first glance, this sounds impossible.

“Next year, I will turn 28.”

But if you look at the key word in what the man says — “turn” — the puzzle starts to unravel.

If next year, he will turn 28, this means that, at some point this year, he will turn 27. Which means he is currently 26.

Let’s look at what we know:

  • Day before yesterday: 25
  • Currently: 26
  • This year (at some point): 27
  • Next year: 28

Since he’ll be both 26 and 27 this year, the day before yesterday had to be last year.

Which means that yesterday was his birthday.

But at some point this year, he turns 27. That means both yesterday and the day before yesterday had to be last year.

Which leaves us with this timetable:

  • December 30 (day before yesterday, last year): 25
  • December 31 (yesterday, last year, his birthday): 26
  • January 1 (today, this year): 26
  • December 31 (later this year): 27
  • December 31 (next year): 28

He was born on December 31st and spoke about it on January 1st.


Did you unravel one or both of these brain teasers? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.

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Answers to our International Tabletop Day Puzzle (Plus a Special Offer!)

a story to die for box

Before we start with today’s blog post, we’ve got a special offer for you from the puzzly folks at ThinkFun!

Have you checked out our reviews of their new unsolved crime series of puzzle games? In Cold Case, you’re tasked with going through the evidence and solving the case!

There are two editions of Cold Case; A Story to Die For is available for preorder now, and A Pinch of Murder will be available for preorder on June 14th!

And if you click this link and use the promo code 20COLDCASE, you’ll get the puzzle game for 20% off!

Enjoy!


tabletopday_logo

Last week, we celebrated International Tabletop Day with some puzzly recommendations, suggestions, and an anagram mix-and-match puzzle, all in the spirit of celebrating gathering with friends and loved ones — in person or virtually — to play games together.

The challenge was to unscramble the names of famous board game characters from the entries on the left, and then match them up with the correct board game from the list on the right.

We’re sure you managed to unravel all those jumbled phrases, but just in case, let’s take a look at the solution.

First, let’s look at the anagrams.

  • Resist Clams = Miss Scarlet
  • Screenplay Bunching = Rich Uncle Pennybags
  • Niceness Fir Sport = Princess Frostine
  • I, Hyphen Pro = Henry Hippo
  • Air Ma = Maria
  • AI Zag Rug = Gigazaur
  • Cam Sat Ivy = Cavity Sam
  • Be Brother = The Robber

And now, for a splash of color, here is the solution for the matching portion of the puzzle.

tabletop-day-mix-and-match-solution

How did you do with the puzzle? Did you enjoy International Tabletop Day? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.


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Answers to our Double Feature Movie Title Opposites Game!

double-feature

Last Friday, we closed out the week with a movie title game for you. We paired off film titles that were opposites, and offered a few clues for each pairing.

With only the genre of each film, the year of release for each, and one star from each film, could you puzzle out each double feature?

We posted fifteen pairings for you to figure out! Let’s go to the movies and see the results!


#1
-Comedy, Romcom
-1985, 1995
-Madeline Kahn, Paul Rudd
(Bonus hint: Tim Curry, Alicia Silverstone)

double feature 1

#2
-Action/Crime, Drama/Crime
-1995, 1990
-Will Smith, Robert DeNiro
(Bonus hint: Martin Lawrence, Joe Pesci)

double feature 2

#3
-Holiday/Musical, Horror
-1954, 1974
-Rosemary Clooney, Margot Kidder
(Bonus hint: Bing Crosby, Olivia Hussey)

double feature 3

#4
-Western, Fantasy/Romance
-1952, 2008
-Gary Cooper, Kristen Stewart

double feature 4

#5
-Comedy, Comedy
-1985, 1994
-Val Kilmer, Jim Carrey

double feature 5

#6
-Drama/Musical, Action
-1980, 2021
-Irene Cara, Bob Odenkirk

double feature 6

#7
-Comedy/Drama, Drama
-2006, 1988
-Steve Carell, Tom Cruise
(Bonus hint: Abigail Breslin, Dustin Hoffman)

double feature 7

#8
-Holiday/Comedy, Animation/Adventure
-1990, 2001
-Macauley Culkin, Hayao Miyazaki

double feature 8

#9
-Romcom, Sci-Fi/Action
-1986, 2014
-Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise

double feature 9

#10
-Drama/Biographical, Action
-1993, 1988
-Ethan Hawke, Bruce Willis

double feature 10

#11
-Sci-Fi/Comedy, Comedy(?)
-1997, 2004
-Tommy Lee Jones, Marlon Wayans

double feature 11

#12
-Horror, Romance
-1987, 1995
-Bill Paxton, Ethan Hawke

double feature 12

#13
-Comedy, Horror
-1989, 2018
-John Travolta, Emily Blunt

double feature 13

#14
-Action/Crime, Horror
-1973, 2017
-Bruce Lee, Daniel Kaluuya

double feature 14

#15
-Drama, Sci-Fi/Comedy
-1994, 1993
-Winona Ryder, Daryl Hannah

double feature 15


How many did you figure out, fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers? Let us know in the comments section below! We’d love to hear from you.

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