What is a puzzle advent calendar?

A short history of the advent calendar

The tradition started in 19th century Germany, where families counted the days to Christmas with chalk marks on a door or a candle burned a little further each evening. Gerhard Lang, whose mother had tied 24 cookies to a piece of cardboard for him as a boy, printed the first commercial advent calendars in 1908, and his later editions hid little pictures behind little doors. Chocolate calendars showed up in the late 1950s but did not take off until Cadbury put them into regular production in the 1990s. The door is the constant. What sits behind it has always changed with the times.

What a puzzle calendar gives you that chocolate does not

A piece of chocolate takes ten seconds. A puzzle takes five or ten minutes, and it gives you something to think about: a little morning ritual with a beginning, a middle, and a solved board at the end. Physical puzzle calendars ship as a box of jigsaws, brain teasers, or wooden mechanical puzzles, one per day, and they are a lovely gift. Their limits are size (a jigsaw that fits in a door is a small jigsaw) and repetition (a box of 24 mixed puzzles rarely has a difficulty arc, so day 20 is no harder than day 2).

An app calendar can do two things a box cannot. The doors can get harder as the month goes on, so the last week of December feels earned. And the puzzles can be generated, so the calendar never runs out and the next year is brand new without buying another box.

How MerryWrap does it

MerryWrap is an advent calendar you play. Behind each of the 25 doors is a fresh Wrap It board, MerryWrap’s own take on the rectangle puzzle Shikaku, dressed in a different world each day: snowy nights, peppermint stripes, gingerbread icing, northern lights and more. One door opens each day from December 1, past doors stay open so you can catch up, and future doors stay shut. Doors 1 to 5 are free for everyone. The 2026 Calendar, a single $6.99 purchase, opens doors 6 through 25 and Santa’s Workshop, a new puzzle every day of the year. Each year’s calendar is its own purchase, only if you want it, and there is no subscription and no ads.

Early doors are small boards with no ribbon, so anyone can learn in one door. From door 8 the ribbon arrives, and by the last week every wrap has to be shaped well to fit the spool. Sundays and Christmas morning use special shaped boards: a tree, a stocking, a star. Every door also hides a gift tag with a short Christmas message, and finding it on your first tear earns a candy cane for your album.

What to look for in any puzzle advent calendar

Whether you buy a box or download an app, four things separate a good one from a dud. The puzzles should be solvable by everyone in the house on day one and still interesting on day 24. The calendar should forgive a missed day rather than punish it. The 25th should feel like a finale. And the whole thing should be done in ten minutes a morning, because December is busy enough already.