"Jolly Old St. Nick" December 23, 2022

[Bob cruise director]

Just a quick note on the zoom site.

AND THIS IS DEFINITELY NOT SOMETHING TO SCARE AWAY PEOPLE!!!

When someone signs into zoom, I get a notification that you have signed in. Every once in a while, like now while I am beating my head against the wall on the MGWCC, I check to see if there is someone else that either I can help or they can help me.

However usually as soon as I sign in, they disappear. That is not my intention nor the intention of having the zoom link. It is there for all of us to use to solve metas or talk to other muggles

[DannyWalter]

Holy Mackerel, that was a good one!

I just posted that verse for the halibut. Didn't think I'd hook you in, though. Couldn't fathom it, since it wasn't on porpoise. But I'm not going to be a crab about it. It was just a fluke!

Let that sink in @DrTom, then you can flex your pun mussels for a bit. Compared to your punster abilities, I'm just a shrimp.

Okay, got that out of my system. (For now.) It was good for the sole.

Wow, what a whale of a response!

Ahi sea what you're doing here...

Was never going to get this one. Had to perch myself up on a bar stool with Isaac the whole time.

[Bob cruise director]

Wow, what a whale of a response!

Ahi sea what you're doing here...

Was never going to get this one. Had to perch myself up on a bar stool with Isaac the whole time.

@DannyWalter , @HunterX and @ship4u and @Joe Ross This is one of the reasons that I love this site. @DrTom does not have a lock on puns - good and bad. And when I read them to my wife, it makes me feel normal except for her eye roll.

[HunterX]

Ahi sea what you're doing here...

Was never going to get this one. Had to perch myself up on a bar stool with Isaac the whole time.

@DannyWalter , @HunterX and @ship4u and @Joe Ross This is one of the reasons that I love this site. @DrTom does not have a lock on puns - good and bad. And when I read them to my wife, it makes me feel normal except for her eye roll.

My wife knows she is required to roll her eyes because I love it. Her punishment to me if I go too far is to ignore me. Then she points out that she's ignoring me. (Which is just as good as an eye roll.) Her father and I swap puns all the time, usually via the family text chain, making everyone else in the family roll their eyes, usually in emoji form .

If you want the ultimate fish-pun experience, play the song "Wet Dream" by Kip Addotta. You can read the lyrics here. Or listen to it here.

[SHIWUTONG]

I came up with the answer but I never noticed the clues with the * in front of them or the HO HO HO's. I mainly focused on the title and 9 across since both reference St. Nick. As I was concentrating on the answer LAUGH in 9 across I saw the word AUGH. Since Augh! is used as a general utterance of frustration and anger I thought it was interesting that putting an L in front of it changed the meaning completely. So then I started putting an L in front of all the other answers in the grid and came up with the word L-ISTS from 34 Across. I didn't find any similar answers in the puzzle that had to do with Santa. Anyway, if I win the mug I guess I'll have to return it....

[Ergcat]

My one reservation was that I associate LIST with Santa as in “he’s making a list”, not LISTS. But the ISTS in the center plus the overall elegance of the meta put me over the top. Another super fun one.

Stay well all

My daughter and I had this same discussion ( a popular song says “He’s making A LIST and checking it twice”) but other Santa folklore refers to “lists” plural to refer to two lists = the Naughty and the Nice lists.

[LadyBird]

Our internet went out Thursday night, with some limited access via data. Then that disappeared and we had no access. Still no internet but at least my data is working somewhat now. So I can report that I made it to shore last night--after some helpful nudges (so no mug).

The only time I had internet access was at church, so I sent out a desperate plea for help on Christmas Eve. Given the holiday and such, I wasn't sure if folks would have the time or inclination to reply--so I sent out 4 pleas. Should have known better with our Muggle community. When I went back to church on Christmas day (and I had access to the internet), there were 4 replies. Quickly screenshotted the replies. Took a look last night after everyone was in bed and voila!

With no access to Zoom calls, Google, or nudges, I was on my own in some odd rabbit holes. I took note of 9A and then saw HO in the first theme HidingOut, but that was the wrong takeaway! Not finding anything more in the themes,, I decided to ignore the * and strike out on my own (and I did strike out--repeatedly).

Maybe SOUND was the key word from 9A. I found SNORE, ECHO, SLUR, BEEP--maybe Mrs. Claus' first name is Bess?

Another Christmas-y clue was 25A--answer ARLO. Which could mean R-low (below the R). That yielded 12 vowels and one consonant--nope.

1A is also Christmas-y. 6 Geese=eggs; 5 rings=oro, 4 calling birds=nada (but why let that stop me), 3 French hens= etre (a stretch but these are rabbit holes), 2 doves (a lord and lady Dove of course)=peer, and two choices for a pear tree (Eden, bare). Oh, bother! The rabbits have won again.

By the way, I had better internet access in Antarctica than I've had in my living room these past few days!

[MikeMillerwsj]

The contest answer is LISTS. Five grid answers become synonyms of the theme answers when preceded by HO: HIDING OUT is HOLED UP, RAISES UP is HOISTS, CAPTIVE is HOSTAGE, DRAGSTER is HOT ROD, HAS A PARTY is HOSTS. The first letters of those grid answers spell the contest answer.

Big thanks to Mike Shenk for this holiday gift, and to Mike and Matt for a bounteous year of weekly presents!  This one was a little trickier than usual--we had 988 entries, about 70% correct.  57 of you got part-way down the trail and submitted HO, (or HO HO HO, or HO HO HO HO HO). Plus SLEIGH (33), REINDEER (17), CHIMNEY (16), MERRY (14), BEARD (10), ELVES (10) and many other yuletide words.  

Congrats to this week's winner: John Lampkin of Sun City Center, Fla.!  And happy holidays and here's to a new year of happiness, health, and solved puzzles!

[Dplass]

This one reminded me of the Halloween one (BOO).

[Joe Ross]

[whimsy]

Just a quick note on the zoom site.

AND THIS IS DEFINITELY NOT SOMETHING TO SCARE AWAY PEOPLE!!!

When someone signs into zoom, I get a notification that you have signed in. Every once in a while, like now while I am beating my head against the wall on the MGWCC, I check to see if there is someone else that either I can help or they can help me.

However usually as soon as I sign in, they disappear. That is not my intention nor the intention of having the zoom link. It is there for all of us to use to solve metas or talk to other muggles

If this were last week, I would have guessed whoever was there may have been discussing the tribute puzzle, and it was as if you had caught them wrapping your presents!

[whimsy]

I had elements of both @LadyBird and @BarbaraK's fun approaches in my unsuccessful attempts.

I was sure that Santa's laugh was important, but because I saw nothing that related to Ho ho ho, I went with other sounds I could find. When I saw that I could extract the word Ding from HIDINGOUT, I equated that with BEEP. (Although I may have been confusing my toaster oven with my microwave!) So I had a B -- the first letter in the 5-letter word BEARD! From RAISESUP, I chose SUP, and got EAT; there's the E! CAPTIVE gave me APT, and I had my A from AFIT. (Yes, Barbara, as you say, rather inconsistent, but what the heck!) With only two letters still needed, I talked myself into believing I could make the Drag from DRAGSTER go with REINA, the Spanish (drag?) Queen and get an R. But try as I might, no segments of HASAPARTY could correspond with the few words that began with a D. And if all the previous silliness wasn't enough to discourage me, that finally stopped me in my bunny tracks!

[DBMiller]

My tHOughts as I went through this...

5 starred clues. Obviously important, need to find out why.

1a, 5a, 9a, and 15a are are Christmas related. But only 9a mentions St Nick. Not sure where to go with it, but keep it in mind. HO HO HO. HidingOut... ecHO. HAsaparty? Jolly? Jolly is in the title, but don't see anything more at the moment.

"St." Nick. Lots of "ST"s in the puzzle. LOST, ISTS, STS, SUNBURST, DRAGSTER, STAGE. Damn, that's six, not five, but one was starred. Abandon HOpe, all Ye wHO enter here.

hiDINGout... Carol of the Bells? Note to self. Carol = ARLO + C.

telLAlie... Deck the Halls? (Completely forgot this wasn't a starred clue entry)

haSAParty... tree sap? O Chistmas Tree?

dRAGSter???

Well, captive is close to nativity? Away in a manager? Probably stretching here, sHOuld stop looking at this rabbit HOle now.

Looked at it off and on througHOut the evening, but nothing came to me.

One last look as I went to bed. 9a must be the hint. Again HO HO HO... wait a minute... I had wanted the H_S_____ in 62a to be HOST, but it wasn't, and yes, there was STS in there, that's HOSTS! Alternate answers! HOSTAGE! HOISTS! HOTROD! And... HOLEDUP! Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

Okay, subtlety needed in my "done and done" post. Use five HO words in my reply... Yeah, that'll do.

[escapeartist]

Vanquished an Escape Room with family over for Christmas - with an appropriately titled sign to boot!

[Wendy Walker]

If you want the ultimate fish-pun experience, play the song "Wet Dream" by Kip Addotta. You can read the lyrics here. Or listen to it here.

Thank goodness that, at our meetup in June, Mark did not know you were a fan of this little ditty. You two would have been reciting the WHOLE THING. He shares the rudest parts of it at the most inappropriate times!

[ship4u]

If you want the ultimate fish-pun experience, play the song "Wet Dream" by Kip Addotta. You can read the lyrics here. Or listen to it here.

Mahi-mahi, orange you the yellow fin in the room......

[woozy]

Like I said...

I was staring and challenging "Inspiration, come! I dare you" and trying to force inspiration and so forced myself go look at "HAS A PARTY" which was very strange wording for an entry and thought other ways of putting it: hosts, throws, caters but "come, inspiration!" HOSTS starts with HO which still has to do with Santa's Laugh and HindingOut which still preyed on me. The remainder of hoSTS was STS and that way I managed to force inspiration by will. This is only the second time I've been able to do that.

[The XWord Rabbit]

Before diving right into a review of this week’s puzzle – and with 2022 only days away from being nothing but a memory -- your X-Word Rabbit would like to take this opportunity to thank those, Muggles and otherwise, who helped make him what he is today.

To all of those on that fateful Zoom chat in June when the topic of celebrating rabbit holes wasn’t anything more than an impromptu comment intended for a laugh. In particular, to Wendy Walker and Joe Ross for their advice, encouragement and technical hand-holding in developing the beast.

To the Rabbit’s co-worker and good friend, Mike Adair, who generously gave – and continues to give -- his creative genius in designing the X-Word Rabbit. Mike’s talents are boundless, as can be demonstrated by visiting his website at: https://mikeadair.com/work

To Matt Gaffney, Mike Shenk and so many others who have invented and developed this strange and wonderful entertainment.

To reliable Muggles like DB Miller who are always there to share tales of wandering and bewilderment and help your Rabbit avoid posting more Carmen Miranda videos.

And finally, to all of you in the Muggle community who share in this passion. Thank you, one and all!

Now, on to this week’s results:

There were plenty of laughs in Mr. Shenk’s “Jolly Old St. Nick” puzzle, as five grid entries required the addition of “HO” to the beginning of them, creating new words and phrases that were synonyms of the five starred clues. The start letters of those entries, in order, spelled out the meta: L-I-S-T-S.

And here’s our nominee: BarbaraK, who abandoned the insertion of “HO” long enough to take a walk in the woods.

"I thought maybe the theme entries could describe the plot of a cheesy Hallmark (sorry, rabbit) Christmas movie - the star hates Christmas and is HIDING OUT; a friend tries to RAISE UP his spirits; they go out and run into bad guys and become CAPTIVE; escape after a madcap chase in a DRAGSTER; he discovers the true meaning of Christmas and HAS A PARTY. Only problem (only? ok, only other than that it's a ridiculous mechanism) is that there are so many holiday movies; Mike couldn't possibly expect us to know one from this. But I tried to google it anyway. No luck.

Then came the good rabbit hole. "Hiding out" must mean that the word "out" is hiding in one of the clues. Sure enough, there's one and only one "out" in 11D "Hangouts for GIs" USOS. Next, "Raises up" - where is there an "up"? Again, one and only one, in 46A "Pickup in an alley" SPARE. Yes! This must be it! Next, "Captive"; OK that one is different with just one word, but let's look for "ive"; uh oh, there are two - inventive and alternative. That's OK, no reason to let a minor inconsistency get in my way; I'll try the front half of this one instead, "capt", and there it is in 10D Benning of Captain Marvel" ANNETTE, perfect! So far I've got a U, S, A - wonder if they'll rearrange to spell CLAUS. Onward to "Dragster". No "drag" in the clues, but exactly one "ster" in 63A "Address for a headmaster" SIR. Hmm, ok, not Claus, but let's see what's next. No "party" in the clues so back to the front part, and look, there is exactly one "has" in 64A "It has wings and flies" STAGE.

So the answer is USASS ? One problem with that is that it's not a word. (Another of course is that it used the theme answers inconsistently and the least interesting part of each of them.) But other than that..."

Time for your Rabbit to return to his burrow, but not before wishing you all the best in the New Year!

[HunterX]

If you want the ultimate fish-pun experience, play the song "Wet Dream" by Kip Addotta. You can read the lyrics here. Or listen to it here.

Thank goodness that, at our meetup in June, Mark did not know you were a fan of this little ditty. You two would have been reciting the WHOLE THING. He shares the rudest parts of it at the most inappropriate times!

Wish I'd known! Though I don't know the words by heart. I just remember hearing it many times on the Dr. Demento radio show in the late '70's. But, if Mark likes Monty Python... THAT would have gotten me quoting for hours!

While I don't hope you ever have car trouble, I kinda would like to be there when Mark is driving and his car starts overheating. I'm guessing he'll pull into a Shell station.

[Joe Ross]

While I don't hope you ever have car trouble, I kinda would like to be there when Mark is driving and his car starts overheating. I'm guessing he'll pull into a Shell station.

CUT IT OUT!



CAN'T YA?