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It’s the thought that counts. By the lovely Grace Farris.
P.S. Mom of tweens, and Grace’s beauty uniform.
The Reality of Puzzles
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I haven’t seen a Grace Farris illustration in a long time, and this one made me smile because I noticed she is illustrating her kids getting older. They aren’t staying the same age like Calvin and Hobbs. I love it when my favorite artists and writers grow along with me.
This was us just yesterday. It was our “fun” advent calendar activity – a new, silly puzzle that mom bought! And I thought it’d be such a great, slow activity for a Sunday. But alas, my 9 year old son had absolutely zero patience and gave it about 4 mins worth of work, and my 6 year old daughter just watched us and ate popcorn without participating. My husband and I finished a 500-piece puzzle in 2 hours, though, so there’s that.
I’m a middle school teacher. One of my colleagues has put puzzles on a table in the hall for kids to work on during passing time, when they need a re set…super clever centering tool…and with a map of the US..geography lesson too!
I just got a puzzle board today!!!! The product description included “for moms…” And yup, that’s me. Mid forties and thrilled. We have a tiny home and would set up a folding table for puzzles. This is better – slides right under the couch. And it rotates!!! I’m hopefully my tween may join in like he did when he was wee and we can puzzle together.
Slides under the couch! I got one of those puzzle boards for my-laws, but couldn’t think of where I would store one (we currently set up a folding table). Thanks for the lightbulb moment :)
My ex and my boys used to have a big puzzle going all the time in the winter – it’s one of the things I miss about our family. I didn’t have the patience to “puzzle” with them, but I would sit with them and read or grade papers (teacher) and they would always save the final piece for me so I could pop that one in and say I finished the puzzle! They actually modge-podged a few of them and hung them up. It was a nice family thing and I do miss it.
If I put a puzzle out, the whole family will descend on it like a pack of dogs on a steak. I usually put them out for holidays on the kitchen table so people are all together in the kitchen, chatting, but out of the way of the cook. We usually finish a 1,000 piece in a single day because it’s so hard for everyone to walk away. Also, for some reason years ago, I started using an English accent while looking for pieces and so now we all basically talk like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins every time.
This is hilarious. My partner also starts speaking in weird voices when we do a jigsaw – makes me laugh that it’s clearly a common effect!
I love puzzles but my mother-in-law turns the pieces upside down, so it’s an extra challenge (I am a puzzle observer when she’s working on one because it’s too much).
Omg, that’s soooo annoying. Lol!
Lol, my brothers won’t do puzzles with me anymore because I have “too many rules.”
This made me chuckle! Will you share some of the rules? :)
My husband and son love having a puzzle going. Starting around age 5, my energetic kid would happily sit for an hour working on a puzzle. He’s the type of person who can just see the pieces and pluck them out of the box one by one putting it together. BUT… we don’t have a lot of space for an ongoing puzzle, so it’s always taking up the dining table and feels cluttered to me. We got a puzzle board so that in theory it can be moved (Reader, it never gets moved). How are people without room for a dedicated table managing puzzles? I’m trying to figure out a solution or just let it go, especially because of previously mentioned attention holding for the kid.
There are large mats called puzzle mats that you can just roll up and then when you are ready to use it again you just unroll it and the unfinished puzzle lays flat again. It’s the way to go.
I fantasize about a pull down table attached to a wall so I can work on one when I want to, without having it in a busy public area where it’s going to get snagged on a coat or something. Preferably one that’s high enough for me to stand at for a bit, instead of wrecking my back and neck crouching over a low coffee table.
Could you set it up on a coffee table? Or find room to squeeze a just big enough folding card table into a room? I also find stuff on the dining room table annoying but I like the same clutter (papers, magazines, puzzles) on the coffee table. It makes the room feel lived-in.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
When we need to use the table, we have a huge piece of cardboard folded in middle that gets stored behind the couch off use (or have used an unfolded sewing cutting board) on top of the puzzle and then cover with a tablecloth. My question is how do others keep cats from absconding with puzzle pieces? Happy puzzling! I love the good Christmas ones that TJ Maxx sells half price post holiday and have collected a few we enjoy.
Art shops sell giant cardboard folders for about $10. It’s just two large sheets of thick cardboard cloth taped together to form a spine/book/folder situation. Opened, We puzzle on one side and spread the pieces on the other. When we need the table back, the unsolved pieces go back in the box and the WIP puzzle just gets the file closed and put under a bed, or an area rug.
I love a puzzle. I’m trying to spend less time in front of the TV and have found that working on a puzzle with music or an audio book on in the back ground is very relaxing for me.
I occasionally enjoy doing a few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but some of my children will go through phases of working them constantly! They’ll work the same one up to ten times in a row! Once the baby dumped six 500+ piece puzzles out; when they were all dually separated and worked, my son exclaimed “That was so much! Can we do that again?” !!!! If only that type of persistence extended to things like chores and schoolwork….
Wow, I found my people. A reader on here mentioned a long time ago that they listen to true crime podcasts while puzzling and I thought, how have I never thought of that! Now it’s my thing :)
We started the tradition of christmas advent puzzle… everyday til christmas, starting on the 1st the elves bring a few pieces of a puzzle that we make together every morning as a family. We started with 200 pieces. Now my son is 11 so we re doing 1000 pieces. My husband and I usually spend the night of the 30th of november making the puzzle in secret until 4 in the morning so the elves can start dropping their little packages on time for the next day… i love it though the night before is exhausting but we usually don t find a good puzzle until last minute!
Agnès, this is brilliant, I love it so much! And as long as they still get their daily advent chocolate, I think my kids will love it too!
My parents live in an apartment in an extended care facility. When I visit, I often find them at the communal puzzle table. EVERY time, the puzzle that they’re putting together is the hardest puzzle ever invented.
When my husband and I were in our 20’s we went on a hiking trip and stayed at a beautiful lodge that offered handmade wooden puzzles. They were the absolute perfect way to end a day of hiking. Grab a beer and a puzzle, sit by the fire and unwind after climbing a mountain. The lodge is no longer in existence and we have 2 kids now who don’t yet have the attention span for it yet, but every fiber in my being wants to create that again one day.
I pulled out a headlamp to do a jigsaw puzzle at Thanksgiving this year. Got roundly made fun of but I love being in the puzzle zone.
So smart! Why have I never thought of this?
Someone I used to do puzzles with would sneakily take one piece and hold it until the end so they would be the one who had the “last piece” Kinda ruined the “team work” of the assembly for me. Sigh…😒
OMG, Ramona. My dad has done this a couple of times. He’s not a puzzler so he thinks our fury is amusing. It’s sociopathic!
Oh dear! 😔🫢😉
this is my daughter. she’ll sit on it and watch us frantically looking for the missing piece.
Our kids’ babysitter said that BOTH of her twin brothers used to do this, and the puzzling would never end!
One Summer I worked at one of those swanky “retirement homes”. They had a beautiful British style library: wood paneled walls, loads of burgundy and plaid,ceiling to floor bookcases filled to the reams with lovely books. My favorite feature: there was a community puzzle atop a table, and everyday people would drop by a connect a piece, maybe two. Some residents would sit for a while and work on it longer, some employees will drop by on their breaks. It was so comforting to take a moment and stop to see the progress or alas, to find a missing piece. Then when it was completed, we would all gather around it proudly, in aw at everyone’s work!
I love puzzles. I am slowly teaching my children to get into them (they are all 5 and under).
Some of my favorite childhood memories are of the extended family gathering in one house at the beach and always having a puzzle going. It was the perfect activity to do all together or in small groups. Waiting on everyone to go to the sand? Spend 5 minutes on the puzzle. 20 minutes till dinner? Puzzle time! Such a low-pressure way to hang out with others.
It takes all kinds, but people who want to make puzzles (puzzles! of all things!) into a competition should are not welcome at my puzzle table lol
jigsaw puzzles are such a silent pleasure for me i’ll do the whole thing myself and then allow my kid to help with the last few pieces. it’s a win-win — trading that final moment of glory and satisfaction for longer moments of relaxed, quiet processing on my own.
I love puzzles. I will do them with anyone or by myself. I’ve learned they allow me to slow down to be with my kids. I have two kids who puzzle with me and two who don’t join, but cuddle up next to my body as I puzzle. I’ll have my oldest’s feet draped over my lap while she reads a book, I puzzle with the other two, and the last child will be playing with her toys at my feet on the rug. Puzzles for the win. For years I have dreamed of having a designated puzzle table, a round one, but I don’t want to risk breaking up the set up we already have.
Yeah you’ll have plenty of time in the future to use a practical round table. Meanwhile I’d hold onto that scene you’ve got going for dear life.
I HATE puzzles. There, I’ve said it!
I’ve never understood the point. The picture is on the box – what fun is putting it together?! Though, I have been thinking about trying out a puzzle soon. Maybe I’ll like it more as an adult.:)
I never really did puzzles beyond a few in childhood until one Thanksgiving week a few years ago. We were in an Airbnb and there was a 1000-piece puzzle of one of those crazy Hieronymus Bosch garden paintings. I picked it up and was H-O-O-K-E-D. The picture was so wild and wacky and it was a delight to pick up each piece and try to figure out where this fantastical person/animal/fruit?/shrimp?? was located in the picture. The whole family loved it and we’ve been chasing that same experience ever since… we did some good puzzles this past thanksgiving too!
That is okay to dislike puzzles yet why say that here where people do like puzzles? I love puzzles yet I have nobody to do them with as all my family is now gone, I am the last.
My husband always hated puzzles, but it wasn’t until we got a puzzle that was mostly black-and-white (the cover of the Boston Globe the day the Red Sox won a World Series) that he discovered he could like it. “THIS is what you feel like when you do all those other puzzles?? This is so addictive!” So now he gets final say in any puzzle we acquire so that it can work regardless of his red-green colorblindness
LOL puzzles always sound like a good idea until we are in the middle of it, irritated
One of my dearest friends assembles puzzles from the center outward, which to me is like biting into an apple starting with the stem, but you know, it makes her very happy – and when we vacation together, she’s the one who stays up all night like a one-woman elven workshop and presents the rest of us with a big old finished puzzle in the morning, so who am I to judge?
I work from the inside-out, too! My mom is a diehard edge-first person. We each think the other is wrong, but it also makes us a great puzzle team!
Even though we’re both usually early to bed, we’ll stay up to compulsively finish a puzzle! Our night owl husbands have many times gone to bed without us to wake up with us grinning over the puzzle table (with cups of coffee!!) like cats who caught the mouse.
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