There are many heartwarming elements that we love, appreciate and adore during the Christmas Holiday Season – thoughtful gifts, indulgent food, and even better company. Christmas has this wonderful ability to bring people together, whether that’s extended family, work colleagues, or groups of friends.
When we all come together, it’s endearing to see everyone’s own personal customs and traditions that they’ve adopted over the years to make their own Christmas’s so special. It could be a silly theme for a present exchange that happens every year, a special winter walk route you do with the same group, or letting the youngest child place the star on top of the tree. Whatever they may be, they mean a lot to you and your close ones and are often passed down through the family from adult to adult.
We love to hear from our customers all year round but it’s those special festive traditions involving our jigsaw puzzles we love the most. Many families will treat themselves to a large, 1000 or 1500 piece Christmas jigsaw puzzle, and have it sitting on their coffee table. Anyone is welcome to come and rummage around the pieces and try to find a couple of pieces to add to the steadily growing image. This pastime encourages lots of friendly chit-chats and sharing joy and satisfaction as another wooden piece clicks into place.
As our puzzles are generally made for adults, it’s very common for families with younger children to tell us that they let their little ones add the whimsy pieces at the end, to help them feel included and involved. Especially as the whimsy shapes are recognizable. Those with older children often say it’s hard to get them off their screens any time of the year let alone Christmas, but once they start to engage with all generations over a puzzle, they’re all hooked and conversation flows.
“Our tradition is to buy a new Christmas puzzle every Christmas, which will come out on Christmas Day once dinner has been cleared away. It’s a great way to keep everyone around the table, talking, having fun and working together. We try to pick tricky puzzles that will take a few hours so that people can come and go from the table over the afternoon. We have quite the collection of Wentworth Christmas Puzzles and this year have added the Regent Street puzzle, which is a beautiful reminder of many happy Christmas shopping trips to London.”
Puzzling is a great activity for adults once the kids have gone to bed. After a busy day of Christmas shopping and a secret present wrapping session, it’s a calming and relaxing way to unwind. Especially if you are wanting to avoid tech or you’re all ‘Christmas-movied’ out. Playing board games is also traditional with other adults in your household, but sometimes a jigsaw is a great alternative if you’re a bit tired of rules, or if you prefer something you can enjoy by yourself too.
But if you want to keep the generations happy it’s our cracker puzzles that really are the stars. The collection expands every year, so they make great collectibles. As these mini puzzles come in cracker-style packaging they make fabulous eco-friendly and sustainable alternatives to traditional crackers to dress the dinner table! When the meal is finally finished, everyone stays around the table, completing and swapping the puzzles around – it’s a wonderful way to extend the time we all spend together at this special time of the year.
Online content creator and blogger, Serena Lee recently posted about how her family enjoy new Wentworth puzzles each year, using them for Stocking Fillers and because our Cracker Puzzles are a sustainable alternative to conventional crackers. They have now become part of her family Christmas traditions.
Some of our customers make their own Advent Calendars from our puzzles by dividing a puzzle up into groups of 25 and then give a group out each day of December up to Christmas Day. Then on The big day the puzzle is complete revealing the image to all.
Similarly, some people like to complete smaller puzzles as part of their everyday advent festivities. Our 40 piece puzzles make a great addition to your everyday enjoyment, perhaps with a cup of tea in the morning to start the day or as a way of winding down in the evening with a hot chocolate of festive cup of mulled wine. This year, Wentworth ambassador, Becky (@puzzled_01 on Instagram), has enjoyed a mini puzzle each day so far to help celebrate advent.
We hope this has provided a little bit of inspiration if you’d like to join in with some puzzling traditions. Or if you have any to add we’d love to them all on social media with the hashtag #WentworthPuzzles