Your Thanksgiving plans (flying to Barbados for a romp with Pedro) sadly fell through. But wait! All is not lost! Your Aunt Carol invited you over to her place.
Though you’re sad about Pedro, you think “What the heck, how bad could it be?” You grab the Pinot Noir you planned to enjoy with Pedro, hop in your car and head to Aunt Carol’s.
So how bad will your Thanksgiving be? Solve this puzzle to find out!
Thanksgiving Details:
At the House: Aunt Carol, Uncle Harold, Cousin Penelope, Brother-in-Law Dick (no idea where your sister is), and Lydia (friend of the family)
What They Made: Turkey, Tofurkey, Green Bean Casserole, Pumpkin Pie, and Apple Pie
What They’re Wearing: Suit and Tie, Best Dress, Best Sweatshirt, Old Sweatshirt, All Black
What They’re Doing: Watching TV, Cooking, Delegating, Spilling Things, Drinking Your Wine
Bragging Rights: They Have the New iPhone, They Drive a BMW, They are a Minimalist, Their Oldest Attends Julliard, They Recently Found the Lord
Your objective: Find out what everyone brought, what they’re wearing, what they’re doing and what they’re bragging about.
Clues:
- The woman cooking the turkey (and doing all the cooking thank-you-very-much) does not drive a BMW and is wearing an old sweatshirt.
- Uncle Harold, who does not attend church, thinks it’s too warm to wear a sweatshirt and hates pumpkin pie.
- The person who brought the apple pie is careful not to spill things and does not drive.
- The man watching TV – okay, come on, you KNEW it was a man – never wears black as it’s simply not his color.
- Aunt Carol has two children, but only talks about her oldest who is a far better musician than you or Penelope will ever be. (You never kept up with those lessons, did you?)
- When you are introduced to Aunt Carol’s friend, Lydia, you begin singing this song from the Muppets. In response, Lydia, who is not wearing a dress, hits you in the face with her pie.
- Your cousin Penelope, also not wearing a dress, has never been more annoying than she is today. That’s saying something, given how she once glued together the pages of your favorite comic book. But today you find common ground as you make fun of the relative fumbling with their new iPhone. Also, she helps you pick the apple pie filling out of your hair.
- You desperately want a bit of fresh air, but upon opening the back door, notice that the relative wearing a suit is outside drinking the bottle of wine you brought. He appears to be sobbing. You decide not to go outside and instead see if your Aunt Carol needs help.
- The person who made the green bean casserole is wearing a lovely dress and staying out of the kitchen.
- The one who made the tofurkey does not appreciate your humor so stop it. Tofurkey is so a real food, no matter what Aunt Carol says. Also, could you wipe up the miso-mushroom gravy she spilled? Thanks.
- Aunt Carol wishes the person doing the delegating and the one wearing all black would find the missing bottle of wine.
- After pointing out where the wine went, Aunt Carol sends you to the store for another bottle, as well as a pie to replace the one you got in the kisser. The BMW driver can’t go because he’s hammered.
- Uncle Harold, who uses Amazon’s 1-click shopping far too often, hasn’t worn a suit since 1983 and thinks BMW drivers are a$$holes.
- Dinner is finally ready and Lydia says grace for approximately eight minutes, ending only when the person wearing black spills the new bottle of wine on your pants.
Below is your handy-dandy puzzle grid to help you solve this puzzle. Just click on the upper right toggle to open in a new window and print.
(By the way, it took me 5x longer to make this grid than it did to make the whole puzzle, so even if you don’t use it, admire it anyway. My shattered ego will thank you.)
If you don’t know how to solve logic puzzles, here’s a Video with instructions
Condensed version: Put an X in the boxes you know to be false, put a dot in the boxes you know to be true.
Here’s the Solution to this Puzzle (Yes, it really is solvable, but even if you don’t work the puzzle, go ahead and read the solution anyway. You might enjoy it. 😉)
Happy Thanksgiving!
Top picture (of my future self) is by Alex Harvey on Unsplash
Picture of a few of my favorite things is by Alex Geerts on Unsplash
Feeding on Folly 
Great puzzle! Took awhile to figure out, but then I saw the answer link at the bottom. Sorry that whole Pedro thing didn’t work out, maybe next year.
Thank you SO much for doing the puzzle! It’s the first one I ever made and it was hoot. I had a couple people test it out. One was able to solve it, the other one got stuck. And here I feared I made it too simple.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Next year lets definitely try to get to Padro’s… Happy Thanksgiving!
Barbados would make a wonderful Thanksgiving, wouldn’t it? 😉
Thanks, JC – a Happy Thanksgiving to you, too!
Brilliant! I printed this off and had fun making notes and drawing lines and circles. This is my kind of heaven. I compared my solution with yours and was most happy to have nailed Uncle Harry who is most welcome to fly-by my chic abode any day – the French have a particularly fine line in raised eyebrows and lip puckering which I would like to provoke some more 😉 Have a beautiful Thanksgiving and I give thanks to you for your marvelous blog and the delight it brings to me
Another logic puzzle aficionado! I’m so glad it gave you enjoyed it. Honestly, I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but it turned out to be a fun challenge.
And golly, thank you for the compliment! Believe me, the feeling is mutual. 🙂
😊
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, dear friend! Next year, Pedro!
Haha! Yes, Pedro awaits!
Happy Thanksgiving, Diane!
Hey, CJ! Hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Pedro and I are doing Black Friday at the Bridgetown Harbour Market (he got you something cool!) We’re having a Logical Puzzle tournament tonight over drinks by the pool. We’re doing teams and we’ve named ourselves The … well … I can’t actually put that in a family blog. Anyway, having a great time. Wish you were here. (P. says “hey”)
Dammit, WD, must you gloat?! *sigh*
Tell Pedro I said ‘hey’ back, and that our reservations are set for next year so everything should be a go. (fyi: be sure to give him plenty of hints on the logic puzzle, okay? Pedro is a dear, but he’s not the brightest bulb in the pantry.)
Exactly, but the boy knows how to party. (great puzzle — still working on it.)
Hope it (and he) doesn’t keep you up all night. 😉
Fun and clever post! I have to admit, my brain wasn’t fully cooperating after a bit so I had to resort to reading the solution. Ah, middle age 🙂
Thanks, Rhonda! Hope you had a lovely Thanksgiving.
And middle age isn’t so bad, right? At least it gives us an excuse! 😉
Hope you had a good Thanksgiving – and eventually got to eat and drink instead of having it flung and spilt 🙂 I admit I didn’t even attempt the logic puzzle (just not my kind of fun, too much thinking), but I do appreciate how you managed to structure it (me being a murder mystery reader of old). Going back now to read the solution, just so you know I didn’t head there first and then pretend I knew how it all worked 🙂
Oh good! I hoped I had something for both the puzzler and non-puzzler to enjoy. The solution was especially fun to write. 😉
I still couldn’t keep it straight in my mind. I usually have to read these things 3 or 4 times 🙂
I should probably be concerned, as it made perfect sense in my head. 😜
Looks like fun. It may be a while before I get to it, I’m kinda swamped lately (a week behind on blog reading, among other things…)
Ouch! A week behind sounds scary.
Maybe you should read the solution and be done with it. 😉
Here’s my sad little tale: I haven’t responded in a timely manner on this due to a fervent desire to figure your delightful puzzle out before doing so, as I had a slavish devotion to such things in my more nubile scholastic years. Trouble is, my printer has been on the fritz for a while, and I had neglected to replace it, due to the ease of simply routing things to Partner’s printer instead. Then here comes your offering and I thought, that’s it, I’m going to get a new printer that can lovingly print out your grid, justifying the expense because it would lead to my return to form as Logic Puzzle Master. I was giddy with excitement.
I did my printer research, and I managed to find an enticing model at Best Buy, an all-in-one (printer, scanner, fax, copier, Wi-Fi, etc) combination for the astonishingly-low price of FIFTY BUCKS. Better yet, I discovered that I had $110 dollars in certificates at Best Buy just yearning to be spent. This was a sign from the Universe! So the printer was, essentially, free, as well as the two Blu-Ray movies and the XBOX One game that I snatched up in a frenzy. I raced out of the store full of determination.
The unopened printer box sat on the kitchen table for three days, because I have focus issues coupled with laziness. Eventually I did the hookup deed and printed out the grid. The grid sat on my desk for an additional two days, forlorn and abandoned. Last night, I finally embarked on my journey, convinced of triumph.
I couldn’t figure out a damn thing, unable to determine if Colonel Mustard did it in the spa with a loofah. I hit the fail blog, hard.
Moral of the story: If you insist on making a bigger production out of something than it really should be, disappointment will awash your soul. Still, thank you for this opportunity. I had a really swell time until I didn’t… 😉
P.S. Do you need me to run any bulk print jobs? Because I’m good to go now…
I just realized that my “Moral” reads as if I might be blaming you, and that is not the case at all. Mea culpa.
No worries!
(mmpphh, heeheehee)
I kind of hate to admit this, but the idea of my post sending you off on a printer-buying excursion, braving Best Buy during the holiday season, and then giving you much angst as you fiercely tried to solve my little word puzzle, fills me with much joy.
I’m sorry. I shouldn’t feel that way. I should apologize. I should feel responsible and contrite. I should… mmphhh, heeheehee, OMG! After all that you couldn’t solve it!! HAHAHA!!!
A-hem. I mean, gosh Brian. So sorry to hear this gave you trouble. I promise my next puzzle will be… mmpphhh 😆
Ooooh! I love logic puzzles! I will solve this!
I hope you enjoy it friend!
Totally fun, fully amazing, and I’m returning the favor by following you back. You truly make me smile–I love your humor!
Aw, thank you so much! Nice to have you aboard!