It’s Christmas in July! We are celebrating with a series of advent calendars reviews to get the season started. Don’t worry, though. You can still look forward to our annual fall round-up of advent calendars.
We’re starting off with Buffalo Games’s Dowdle Studios 24 Day Advent Calendar Puzzles. Eric Dowdle is the illustrator of the 24 charming winter or Christmas scenes.
The Dowdle Studios 24 Day Advent Calendar contains 24 small, numbered boxes, each of which contains a single complete picture; 24 Adhesive Puzzle Savers; and a poster of the completed image.
Each of the individual puzzles is 40 pieces that are approximately 1”. As you build each day’s mini puzzle, you can add on the new puzzles to create a 1000-piece completed puzzle on Christmas Eve. And, as a bonus, the 24 sheets of adhesive puzzle saver let you keep the puzzles together.
For all of the puzzle enthusiasts and ASMR lovers, you should know that these pieces have a very satisfying click. They are also marked on the back with letters, so if you don’t use the adhesive backing and the puzzle pieces get jumbled, you can separate them back into their individual days. A very nice touch!
Next up is Buffalo Games’s Disney 12 Days of Christmas. The first 11 days are ornaments decorated with Christmas-themed Disney characters (the Sensational Six: Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Goofy, and Pluto) and the 12th day is a Christmas tree decorated with the Sensational Six and Disney holiday theming. Adorable!
With the advent calendar open, you can see each of the peppermint-candy decorated windows on the right and the images for each of the puzzles by number on the left. Each ornament puzzle is a set of 100 pieces in a plastic bag. The Christmas tree puzzle is 300 pieces. You’ll find the envelope containing 11 adhesive puzzle saver sheets tucked behind the windows.
TOP TIP: If your family likes surprises (or is mixed), you can cut off the cover and let the ones who don’t like surprises pick the puzzles they want (from the image on the inside of the cover) and leave the rest as random surprises for your more adventurous puzzlers. This is also helpful for doling out puzzles to the family members who prefer certain Disney characters over others. The front of the cover can still be used as a picture guide for those who like to see the image.
While this may look like a children’s advent calendar from the cover, it is not for all ages. The age recommendation is 10+ and, due to the size of the pieces (which are varied, but can be very small) these puzzles should not be left around small children unattended. The individual puzzles are also more complicated because of the bauble shape.
TOP TIP: The pattern of the ornament puzzles seems to be the same (i.e., same shapes in the same places for each puzzle), so having a different person complete the puzzle each day, rather than having the entire family work on them together every day, would help hide the repetition. The Christmas tree could definitely be completed by the family together. Keep an eye on the littles, though.
Buy it now before it sells out!
Come back next week for our next advent calendar review. We’ll have one every week in July.
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