Christmas Puzzles

by Shonnie Scarola

A tradition in our household for the last few years is to begin a new jigsaw puzzle on the first Sunday of Advent, to be finished by Christmas Eve. Today we started a 1000 piece one called "St. Nicholas Circle" from a painting by Thomas Kinkade. We usually purchase our Christmas puzzle right after Christmas when they are 50% off and save it for the following year. Hallmark has some beautiful ones. Last year we worked one by Norman Rockwell. Each day the children (mine are older, ages 10 and up) spend a few minutes at the card table finding a few pieces! The puzzles have to be of a Christmas scene.

A good friend of mine who gave me the idea has done this for years. Her children are now grown and married but each year when they come to visit with their little ones during the holidays, they insist on working a Christmas puzzle. She has glued all her puzzles together. During the holidays, she takes down all her pictures and hangs her puzzles all over the house. She has a large, beautiful home and some of the puzzles are shaped like trees or ornaments, etc. Each one has special memories. She invites several ladies over for a cup of Christmas tea right before Christmas and we always walk around admiring the puzzle pictures while she relates the story behind each one! (and we never tire of hearing about them!...like the one where the dog ate a piece so that one has one missing piece, etc.)

We never seem to get ours glued together and even if we did, we don't have many places to store them or hang them. This particular friend stores hers in black plastic garbage bags under her bed!

God Bless, Shonnie (we have the border completed on our puzzle!)

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