It’s Christmas Day, and that means it’s time to work my Stave Santa puzzle (entitled “In A Wink”) for what I see on the handwritten label is the 20th year!
Back 20-some years ago, when business was booming and we were all flush, I discovered these gorgeous Stave jigsaw puzzles. Each is hand cut from cherry wood, and you can order custom pieces to be fitted within the puzzle…

We had gotten several for our dad at that time, and I own three of them, which is probably nearly $1,000 worth of puzzling masterwork. Kind of ridiculous, I know, but oh, the satisfyingly quiet little “chick” of perfect wooden pieces going into place…
My Christmas Santa puzzle is especially fun because it’s one of their trick puzzles, meaning some pieces will fit in two places. See… this almost all fits, but is obviously wrong:

But what I love most about this puzzle is that you really have to do it the wrong way first, before you can change a few pieces around so it’s right:

My annual reminder that one must often fail before one can succeed… 🙂

Merry Christmas, friends!