With Halloween just around the corner, I’ve been thinking about our collection of seasonal puzzles and why I love them so much.
There’s something special about having puzzles that we pull out during certain times of the year. Christmas and Halloween are the obvious ones, but I love puzzles that celebrate the changing seasons too, whether it’s all the cosy colours of autumn, flowers and gardens for spring, or snowy scenes that make absolutely no sense for winter in Auckland but somehow still help bring the winter vibes.
For me, seasonal puzzles are a little bit like decorations. You might only bring them out for a few weeks each year, but that’s part of what makes them special.
A Puzzle Can Become Part of the Celebrations
I love the idea of having certain puzzles that you come back to every year.
You unpack the Christmas decorations, put the tree up, and somewhere along the way, out comes the Christmas puzzle. Or October arrives and suddenly it feels completely reasonable to have pumpkins, ghosts, witches and slightly spooky cottages covering the puzzle table.
And unlike a lot of things we buy for a particular season, a good puzzle doesn’t have to be a one-and-done thing. You can pack it away when the season is over and rediscover it again next year.
But the nicest part is doing it together and having other people join in whenever they come over. I also can’t wait to get the kids in on seasonal puzzles so they can experience the same joy that we do.
They Can Make the Seasons Feel Like Seasons ❄️
I am very easily influenced by the time of year when it comes to choosing a puzzle.
As soon as spring arrives, I want gardens, flowers, greenery and bright colours. Autumn makes me want cosy cottages, bookshelves, cups of tea and warm earthy colours. Halloween means anything spooky, witchy or covered in pumpkins. And once we get anywhere near Christmas, I’m ready for Christmas markets, gingerbread houses, snowy villages and ridiculously festive scenes.
Does Auckland actually look like a snowy Christmas village in December? Absolutely not.
Will I happily puzzle one anyway? Absolutely.
Sometimes it’s less about what the season actually looks like outside and more about embracing the feeling of it. Although I think that’s also why I’m a little bit in love with Reverie Puzzles’ Christmas Markets puzzle. It feels so much more like an Auckland Christmas than the traditional snowy Christmas scenes we usually see on puzzles.
They’re a Great Excuse to Slow Down
One of the things I love most about puzzling in general is that it gives you an excuse to stop for a while.
Seasonal puzzles somehow make that feel even nicer. There’s no rush to finish them. They can sit on the table over a weekend, during the school holidays, or over Christmas while everyone wanders past and adds a few pieces.
Some of my favourite puzzles are the ones that become a shared project without anyone really deciding they’re going to be a shared project.
Someone sits down for five minutes. Someone else finds the piece you’ve been looking for forever. Suddenly half the family is sitting around the table, chatting away and helping to finish the puzzle.
Halloween Might Suddenly Be One of My Favourites 🎃
Siobhan has always been a huge fan of Halloween, I have not. However, I may have discovered a newfound weakness for Halloween puzzles and it is quickly becoming one of my favourite puzzle types to collect.
Maybe it’s because puzzle artwork and Halloween work so well together. You get all the cosy autumn colours, tiny details, pumpkins, black cats, haunted houses, witches, potions and just enough spooky without necessarily being scary.
And because Halloween is pretty much a non-existent celebration in our family compared with Christmas, doing a Halloween puzzle is a really easy way to get into the spirit of it without needing to completely decorate the house.
Plus, you can get a super cute advent calendar from Reverie Puzzles for a 13 day countdown to Halloween with their gorgeous mini puzzles and I am obsessed with it.
And Then There’s Christmas…🎄
Christmas puzzles probably deserve an entire blog of their own, but they also have their place here amongst all the other seasonal puzzles that we love (don’t worry, I’ll be back after Halloween with a Christmas puzzle blog 😉).
There is something so special about it ticking over to the first of December and having a whole month filled with Christmas puzzles.
Siobhan and I tend to do a 1000pc puzzle each and then work on our Christmas puzzle advent calendar together. Last year was our first year doing the Wasgij Advent Calendar and we loved it, although Siobhan had many complaints about me using my left hand to puzzle right beside her right hand. Maybe this year we will swap seats…(or not).
And that’s another thing I love about seasonal puzzles. I love the idea of slowly building up a collection over the years. Some might come out every Christmas, while others get rotated depending on what we feel like doing that year.
And yes, I fully support having far more Christmas puzzles than you could realistically complete in one December.
We already have many, many Christmas puzzles and this year we’ll probably add even more to the collection. But the joy that comes with pulling them back out and the time spent together around the puzzle table will always make it worth it in my books.
A Little Collection for Every Season
I think that’s ultimately why I love seasonal puzzles so much.
They’re not just something to complete once and put back on the shelf. They can become part of how you celebrate a season, mark a particular time of year, or simply give yourself an excuse to slow down and enjoy it.
You can have your favourite Christmas puzzles that come out every December, the spooky ones you save for October, and the ridiculously floral puzzle that signals spring has finally arrived.
And then, of course, you need a few new ones each year…
