Days 12-18 of the Advent PuzzleTree

 George has said I've made him very happy this year.  I don't think he's ever had such a puzzling Christmas.  Thus far, he's only had 1 puzzle he didn't like. I hope I can keep this up.  This just makes it harder though for future years.  I'll have to up my game in the future.  

In case you haven't noticed a pattern here, I've been mostly gifting him burr puzzles.  These are his favorite.  I've not worked out yet if he likes to actually solve them, or if he likes to program them into burr tools more.  But what I do know is that he has been one happy man these past 18 days.

Day 12: Unbalanced 6 Board Burr by Juno. I believe he enjoyed this one. It was fun watching him take out the calipers to measure the difference in the size of the pieces. Of course he had it solved before dinner was on the table.

Day 13: 6-T by Dr. Volker Latussek caused much grief.  He started it before bed, managed it outside the box, put it into burr tools and discovered three solutions.  When I woke in the morning he showed me the finished puzzle. It bothered him being in pieces so he woke in the middle of the night and assembled it.  

Day 14: L-I-Vator. 2 rotations. Only three assemblies for this puzzle. Of course he entered it into burr tools. This one is nifty. It has a box with a lid that comes off. I guess you can put it together through the lid, Me? I'd just take it off and make it a packing puzzle. And yes, he enjoyed the programming more than the puzzling.

Day 15: 5th Avenue by Nob. Long ago George told me he would like to get all of the Nob puzzles. I've been hunting for them since. This year I found 5th Avenue in Japan for him. He sorted out the puzzle rather quickly, but then got stuck. Of course he went straight for Burr Tools. That didn't work. He had a great idea on how to program it, but made a small error in his programming. I was told he'd go back to it, but then he found the solution taped to the inside of the box. No Burr Tools solution exists yet.

Day 16: 3Qcube by Takeyuki Endou is an interesting puzzle. It is only 3 pieces inside a cage. How hard can it be? Two pieces are identical and then there is the third. Yes, he Burr Tooled it. No, it doesn't help. As it turns out, this one needed a few rotations to solve. He managed to put it back together and on the shelf in the wood room. He eagerly awaited day 17.

Day 17: Kepler by Felix Ure. This one was a replacement for my foolishness last week. Luckily the puzzle came in the mail the same day so I was able to put it in the box. I love it! It's such a cute little puzzle. George of course immediately pulled out the calipers and set to measuring. He then unscrewed (!) the bottom of the box to investigate. I won't give anything away here, but this is a really clever little puzzle. I highly recommend it.

Day 17 was also the day the driveway was started. We are more than pleased with the way it is turning out. I can't wait until it is finished.

Day 18: Loopy L Cube #3 by Juno is the last puzzle of the week.  His reaction was not as I expected.  I won't give it here to remove any negativity.  As always, he did enjoy putting it into burr tools.  It is now back together and in the upstairs wooden section.  

I'm not sure what the next 5 days  have in store for the advent tree, but I do hope he will enjoy them. 

Happy Holidays All.