December was a month that started out hectic and only became more frenzied as the days wore on. Our flight left on the 20th and as the date approached, it was starting to look like I wouldn’t get everything crossed off my “to do” list before boarding. For the most part I didn’t mind but one item that stung was my annual Christmas Cryptic, a personalized puzzle I build for my family every year.
Ostensibly, the Christmas cryptic is my gift to the family. Really, it’s a gift that the family gives to me. I savour their coos of excitement as my parents, sister and husband first glimpse the grid. I smile ear to ear as they retreat to the armchairs and couches with mugs of coffee, ballpoint pens, and the puzzle. “Which one are you working on now?” I pester excitedly. “Have you got 12 Across yet?”
When time is limited, we’re forced to set aside the “love to do’s” in our schedules and devote ourselves to the “must do’s”: the bills, the work deadlines, the parenting responsibilities. It’s only temporary, we tell ourselves. It’s only until things calm down a little. But no sooner has one deadline been met than another crops up. Another bill comes in the mail. Another request comes in from the school or daycare.
And that temporary break we took from the things that make us feel like ourselves?
It isn’t so temporary anymore.
Days before the scheduled flight, an urgent desperation came clawing up through me. I had to make that Christmas crossword puzzle. Setting aside far more important things, I created a grid, blocked out my “inside joke” solutions, and then hit the same barrier that always blocks the way to a personalized puzzle: nothing fit the remaining space.
This is normal. The more pre-specified answers there are in a puzzle, the more challenging it is to make the grid come together, but that’s part of the fun. Typically when I hit this barrier, I back up, remove the personalized answers, and try again with another configuration. After seven or eight attempts, I end up with a workable grid.
It isn’t so temporary anymore.
Days before the scheduled flight, an urgent desperation came clawing up through me. I had to make that Christmas crossword puzzle. Setting aside far more important things, I created a grid, blocked out my “inside joke” solutions, and then hit the same barrier that always blocks the way to a personalized puzzle: nothing fit the remaining space.
This is normal. The more pre-specified answers there are in a puzzle, the more challenging it is to make the grid come together, but that’s part of the fun. Typically when I hit this barrier, I back up, remove the personalized answers, and try again with another configuration. After seven or eight attempts, I end up with a workable grid.
My 2015 Christmas crossword grid and its myriad imperfections. But in this case, there wasn’t time. The only solution was to fudge the grid. Wincing, I began, deleting more and more squares until I wound up with a puzzle that was inky with black spaces, like the grin of an NHL enforcer, but that fit. As for writing clues, I crammed that into every slip of time I could find. On the metro. At the dentist’s office. In the grocery story check-out line.
It wasn’t an ideal way to work. The resulting puzzle was far from perfect. But by the time I had to leave for the airport, it was done. And on Christmas Day, I got my coos of excitement, I smiled my ear-to-ear grin, and I felt like myself.
It wasn’t an ideal way to work. The resulting puzzle was far from perfect. But by the time I had to leave for the airport, it was done. And on Christmas Day, I got my coos of excitement, I smiled my ear-to-ear grin, and I felt like myself.
And you know what's strange? Despite the slap-dash nature of the whole thing, some of the clues I came up with [(Dart right in a fight, 5)(Lover won't split tapioca, 8)(French author climbs flowering shrub, 5)] were surprisingly good.
I tend to view imperfection as a necessary trade-off to an over-scheduled life, something I must tolerate because it is unavoidable. But today, I re-read these lyrics from Leonard Cohen, a fellow Montreal:
“Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There's a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.”
“Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There's a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.”
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