I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Christmas isn’t Christmas without a great puzzle to work on! It’s been a family tradition for decades, and now on both sides of the Atlantic – nothing can stop us from Christmas puzzles! This year we’re working on a What If? puzzle, and all is not as it seems.
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Ravensburger kindly sent us a copy of WHAT IF? No.20 Christmas Lights to put together; and we’ve all been enjoying slotting the pieces together both individually, and together as a family as well. As usual, Kallista can’t wait to get things started and did the job of dividing the pieces up into edges and centre pieces and did a good portion of the frame herself while I was busy on other projects.

I finally finished a cross-stitch piece I needed for a craft workshop I attended in Belfast, so I was then able to sit down with Kallista and put a few pieces together…well…perhaps more than just a few! The thing is, for me, I simply cannot sit down ‘just for 10 minutes’ and work on a puzzle… Oh, no! That is always my intention, of course, but before I know it a whole afternoon has passed and I then need to rush to get dinner on the table! This is what happened on Friday when Phil was at his work Christmas do and I needed to have the kids fed and ready early for us to walk to Ju-Jitsu after a brief stop at the library to drop off a few books.
We made it in time, and the puzzle was much more put together, too!
While I worked on the puzzle, the children dressed up as Santa’s helpers and delivered some homemade caramel popcorn to our neighbours with their Christmas cards. That’s another tradition we do every year. The kids are just so cute dressed up and they love going door to door delivering cheer – even in bad weather.
Sunday morning arrived and everyone was home together at the same time, which hasn’t happened all week. After breakfast we sat down to watch Christmas movies and of course, we multi-tasked by putting a few pieces of this puzzle together.

As I mentioned, this is a What If? puzzle…which means it’s taking us a little longer to assemble than usual because what you see on the box lid is not what the completed puzzle will turn out like! On the lid you see two neighbours – one family has their house all decked out and covered in lights for Christmas, while the family next door has a little decoration envy as they only have a small Christmas tree to light up…but…What If? What if their dreams of a bigger tree and more lights were to come true? What would happen?
This is where you need to put the puzzle together to discover the true puzzle picture!
We continued to work on the puzzle during afternoons together watching Christmas movies while the winds roared outside and we were all warm and cozy indoors with cups of hot Christmas tea!
Then before long, the puzzle was almost complete….but certainly it seems that there should be more pieces than what are left?
Oh no! All the pieces are gone and there are still two spaces left in the puzzle…I had a bad feeling about that…
This meant that it was time to stop what we were doing and get all hands on deck to do a tidy up and search for the missing pieces.
Ah! There’s one…and there’s the other…they’d migrated under the sofa where it was dark and warm. I should have guessed.
Now the puzzle is complete and we can enjoy the finished the picture!
What is your dream for Christmas? Is it a big tree? Lots of lights? Snow? Presents for everyone? Let me know in the comments!
- What If? Christmas Lights 1000pc Jigsaw Puzzle is available through fine retail stores and Amazon.co.uk.
- The Ravensburger Puzzle Handy is also available from Amazon.co.uk , Amazon.com and retail outlets.
- Follow Ravensburger through their website, Facebook, and YouTube.
If you enjoy a good Christmas puzzle, check out these other Ravensburger 1000-piece puzzles we’ve reviewed:
- Which One’s Santa? Limited Edition
- What If? Christmas Day
- Ludicrous Lighthouse
- Best of British No.15 – The Supermarket
- Flying Home
