A Whirlwind of Advent Calendars, Laughter and Christmas Spirit

For some reason this year we have gone over the top with advent calendars. We have a chocolate, a cheese and wine advent calendars. We also have a Christmas countdown that we move the snowflake on every day! We have never been so advent calendar driven.

We are also doing the Merry Murdle daily Christmas puzzle countdown, a puzzle series written by G.T. Karber. You solve a logic puzzle using a grid everyday, starting on December 1st until Christmas to discover who kidnapped Santa Claus.

Every evening at dinner we try our cheese, my husband and I split the single serving bottle of wine and all critique our experience. Then after dinner our grandson has the chocolate and we work the puzzle. My husband who is 100% not a puzzler, but was a detective in real life hangs out & listens to our chatter. Then when we are ready to make our guess (imagine Clue – who, where and with what) he looks up the answer to let us know if we were right!

The first few nights were rough – I quickly discovered my grandson loves to be in charge and knows everything about solving logic puzzles. He rushes through, doesn’t read the clues and isn’t really that interested in fully completing the grid. haha! I am more meticulous and like to mark out the grid to analyze all the facts. A slower, but usually more accurate process! At this point we have met in the middle and are learning to accommodate each other’s style.

And once we found out groove, it only became more entertaining. Honestly, it feels less like solving a mystery and more like refereeing a competitive sport. Iyan barrels in with the confidence of someone who thinks instructions are merely suggestions, I’m over here running a full FBI grid-analysis operation, and my husband just sips his wine and waits to tell us if we’re wrong. It’s our own personal Christmas sitcom—and weirdly enough, we love it.

Who knew that cheese samples, tiny bottles of wine, chocolate squares, and a kidnapped Santa storyline would become the very thing that brings all three of us around the table each night? This little evening routine has become such a sweet reminder that the best traditions aren’t really about the calendars or the chocolate or even the puzzles. They’re about the laughter, the rhythms we slip into without meaning to, and the stories we’ll tell years from now about how December 2025 was the year we accidentally became the Advent Calendar Family.

Do you have any quirky holiday countdowns or traditions that make your December feel special?

With love & glitter,
Valerie