Christmas is known for its crosswords – double puzzles, jumbo puzzles, prizes of champagne, and all because people have extra time over the holiday to sit and do crosswords. The question of how sober they might be does not often arise.
With that in mind, this update has a BBC Music Magazine Christmas puzzle from 2014 which approaches the seasonal theme from a slightly oblique direction. The 2019 Christmas edition has just made it to New Zealand – the puzzle there is not as seasonal as some (though there’s a simply hidden message), but the magazine has Handel and his Messiah on the front, so is suitably festive.
I shall put up an unpublished puzzle just before Christmas. Before then you have an Enigmatic Variations from Kcit on 15 December (with one of those hard-to-get-at closing dates for which internet submissions were invented; there’ll be a blog somewhere in the middle of the festivities as well) and I have a hand in the Church Times Christmas Double puzzle on 20 December (as well as providing the current one for 6 December). After that comes an online-only Christmas Day puzzle for The Times, but I’ll remind you about that next time.
This is also the time of year when I send out the APEX Christmas puzzle. All is prepared for that to be e-mailed out next weekend (13-15 December, depending on when I get several moments).
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