Vintage Christmas Cards
Isn’t it jarring how, at some point in late November, the realization suddenly strikes that Christmas is just around the corner? For most of the year, the holidays felt so far behind in the past, and then – BAM – Starbucks’s red holiday cups are here, and CVS pharmacies everywhere are hawking holiday decor. I think a lot of you would agree that the season really feels here once Thanksgiving is behind us and the Macy’s Parade has ushered in holiday music, and, especially for the younger ones among us – Santa Claus.
If you’re like me, the one thing that always gets forgotten till the last minute is Christmas cards. No matter how many boxes of beautiful cards I pass in bookstores here in the city, I always forget to mail cards until maybe, if the mood strikes me, right before the holiday itself. (I’m sure by the time my cards arrive to friends and family, their trees are already taken down). Still, I love it when friends and family send me cards, especially if it’s a friend I haven’t seen in a while and they include a photo or an update that shows how they and their family are doing.
I was searching for a puzzle to do this year that would conjure up those feelings of friendship and family, and this Eurographics puzzle with very strong vintage vibes, Vintage Christmas Cards, stood out to me.
I always find that the holidays are an especially great time for puzzling. Since many of us take a little extra time off from work toward the end of the year, it’s fun to spend some family time puzzling together, especially with some holiday music playing in the background or a cup of hot cocoa. This 1,000-piece puzzle was the perfect one to kick off my season of holiday puzzling.
As I usually do, I started by sorting out the edge pieces and putting those together first. I didn’t show my full sorting in the photo, but for this puzzle I basically sorted out any pieces that had letters on them and flipped the rest of the pieces over. I call this the ‘hunt and peck’ method (which reminds me of learning to touch type), because I skip over doing a deeper sort. For puzzles like this, where there is a lot of detail and if you look closely you can spot where most pieces go, I tend to use this method. It’s not particularly fast, but it works for me for a leisurely puzzling experience.
Here you can see the early results. A lot of the blue night sky pieces, and some of the other more distinctive colors, stuck out to me first, so I focused on them.
Holiday Stamps Mini Puzzle by Galison
The progress came along pretty quickly. Early on in the process (when I first turned out the pieces), the first thing I noticed (which was unexpected) is that all of the pieces were standard piece shape - two ins, two outs. Normally, I’m not a big fan of this kind of puzzle cut, but I decided not to be too grumpy about it and to soldier on. Since this image has a lot of variety in it, I wasn’t worried about running into the kinds of false fits that are sometimes more likely with this type of cut. Along with noticing the piece cut, I did think that the Eurographics pieces were nice and sturdy, with a matte finish, and felt good to handle.
Once I was closer to the end, the pieces really flew together. I love that feeling when you’re about 75% through the puzzle and the rest comes together in a flash. I feel like that’s the greatest endorphin rush for a jigsaw puzzler.
Voila! Here’s the finished puzzle. I love a collage puzzle, because even if you have a 1,000-piece puzzle, since there is so much variety to the image it’s easy not to feel stuck along the way while you’re puzzling. If you’ve picked up a piece and gotten frustrated looking for where it is, don’t despair. Just put it down and try another; you’re bound to find a piece where you can recognize where it goes. As the number of remaining pieces dwindles, your instincts will kick in and the process will get easier. This is the scattershot brilliance of the ‘hunt and peck’ method.
I really enjoy the image of this puzzle. I like that, in choosing vintage card images, the puzzle designer has put some jollier and some more traditional images side by side. It lends a variety to the mood of the puzzle.
Though there are a lot of reds, whites, and greens in this puzzle, I also liked that there were a variety of shades and textures throughout that kept this from being an impossible puzzle. Though there were a few times when I felt a bit overwhelmed with reds, after I came back to the pieces a little later it was pretty easy to discern which Santa, or which bough of holly in the case of the green pieces, each belonged to.
This Vintage Christmas Cards puzzle is fairly one-of-a-kind on Puzzle Warehouse’s website at the moment, but if you’re looking for another mail-themed puzzle, Vermont Christmas Company has a charming 550-piece Letters to Santa puzzle.
For further vintage Christmas vibes, I also really like this 1,000-piece New York Puzzle Company image, Christmas Attic.
Whichever puzzles you choose this holiday, I hope that you and yours have a joyous season. I didn’t want to bring down the mood of this entire post, but I should also mention that it’s quite likely that this will be my last blog for Jigsaw Junkies. It has been such a pleasure over these last two years to spend some time reflecting on my puzzling process, and sharing some of my favorite brands, themes, and puzzle artists with you. My time as an ambassador was only initially meant to last a year, so I’m grateful to have been able to stick around for this extra time. Puzzle Warehouse has such an extensive selection of puzzles, and that has meant stumbling upon brands and styles of puzzles that I might never have come across otherwise. That has been the greatest gift of this experience (along with meeting some great fellow puzzlers, and the folks at Puzzle Warehouse). I plan to continue to be active on my puzzle-themed Instagram (linked below), and I hope you’ll keep in touch with me there! Till our paths cross next, I’m wishing you all happy holiday puzzling!
-Richard (@piecebypiecepuzzler / YouTube channel: Piece By Piece Puzzler)
