chuckro | 2021 Year-In-Review: Puzzles!

In late 2020, we got into jigsaw puzzles and family reading time as a way to spend our evenings, since we were getting Zoom burnout but still couldn’t go anywhere. Then I got my dad into jigsaw puzzles, which meant I got a steady supply of them, so we kept up the trend. I slowed down over the summer as things opened up again, but I suspect I’ll carve through a bunch more over the winter months.

We did seven 3D puzzles of various types: Crystal Dragon and Crystal T-Rex, Puzz3D King Arthur’s Camelot, a wooden Marble Climber, a wooden Asian Dragon, five cardboard Color-and-Assemble kits, and a wooden Stegosaurus.

We did thirteen 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzles: Underwater Pokemon, 90s Comic Covers, Outer Space, Batman Covers, Pokemon in Boxes, Spider-Man Covers, Super Friends, Broadway Musicals, Superman Covers, Fads, Children’s Books, Jigsaw Breakfast Cereals, Pokemon Showdown.

We did three 500-piece jigsaw puzzles: Pokemon Starter Evolutions, Eevee-lutions, Drive-In Theater.

We did four 300-piece jigsaw puzzles, three of which came from the same set: Water Starters, Grass Starters, Fire Starters, and a separate general Pokemon picture.

So, that’s 20 “real” jigsaw puzzles. I also did speed-puzzle runs of three 100-piece jigsaw puzzles: Superman Covers, Wizardology, and Pokemon. I now have opinions about jigsaw puzzles, as there are some brands that actually try to make the puzzles interesting and fun (the officially licensed Pokemon puzzles are great at this; Springbok is also generally a very good brand) and plenty that just grab a random picture and layer a standard jigsaw grid on it, so you end up with a lot of smudgy, muddy colors and pieces that can almost fit in lots of the wrong places.

I also did nine Paint By Sticker paintings and one comics sticker puzzle. Those I can generally do in under and hour; but they’re pleasant and kinda zen.